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NanoVNA Sorts Unknown Ferrite Suppression Beads by Fair-Rite Products Corp.

 

NanoVNA Sorts Unknown Ferrite Suppression Beads by Fair-Rite Products Corp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmKQibSDzqM
 

Does anyone else find it infuriating that Fair-Rite does not mark their beads/toroids etc. and instead wastes time producing these videos that help but still cannot actually identify the exact model/mix number. Surely labelling parts is a solved problem by now!

73 de k1jbd
bammi
 

On 4/28/21 12:50 PM, bammi via groups.io wrote:
Does anyone else find it infuriating that Fair-Rite does not mark their beads/toroids etc. and instead wastes time producing these videos that help but still cannot actually identify the exact model/mix number. Surely labelling parts is a solved problem by now!

73 de k1jbd
bammi
It's actually fairly tricky to come up with a way to label them that is:

a) cheap

b) doesn't raise issues with temperature, etc.  (the marking material has tolerate the same temperature range as the core itself) - I suppose you could laser mark them.

The vast majority of ferrites are bought by manufacturers in large quantities for automated manufacturing.  Just like 0402 SMT components, they don't necessarily get labeled, except on the box, reel, or card they're shipped with.  If I'm putting chokes on $2 keyboard cables, I'm not interested in paying even pennies for labeling.

I guess you could do some sort of banded color code, but nobody who's buying millions of dollars worth of cores is asking for it.

Another aspect is that unlabeled magnetics are harder to reverse engineer and copy.  You might measure a particular mu vs frequency curve at a particular temperature on that part, but that's no guarantee that it will match a specific mix.

To a certain extent it's like asking about concrete - they all look pretty much the same but have different properties.

Some aftermarket resellers  do paint the cores different colors (Amidon used to do this, may still do), but a company like FairRite has an awful lot of different materials (about 20, if I guess), and then you have powdered metal cores from other mfrs, etc.

What most folks do is use colored tape for the cores they use.

and if you're buying surplus, you get out the meter.
 

Labelling costs $$$. One used to be able to buy SMDs with values printed
on them. That was an extra $$$ option. Once I receive an order, I
immediately label them with the appropriate mix. However, it's easy to
measure them as shown in the latest from Fair-Rite. Besides, measuring
them using the NANOs is educational. Of course, the HP 8753C does the
conversion to total scalar impedance inside if you set it up. I find it
quite entertaining going through my box of ferrites to determine the mix of
unknown toroids.

Interestingly, the first YouTube presentation Fair-Rite put out recommended
two or three turns through the toroid to minimize the native inductance of
the wire, itself. This latest, they are recommending a single pass through
the toroid - a single turn. I ran a bunch that way this morning and found
a single pass through works quite well.

The powdered iron toroids are color coded. Yes, I measured them as well.
These are not good for baluns and CMCs, however. Their application is
predominantly for high-Q inductors.

Dave - WØLEV

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 7:51 PM bammi via groups.io <jbammi=
mac.com@groups.io> wrote:

Does anyone else find it infuriating that Fair-Rite does not mark their
beads/toroids etc. and instead wastes time producing these videos that help
but still cannot actually identify the exact model/mix number. Surely
labelling parts is a solved problem by now!

73 de k1jbd
bammi





--
*Dave - WØLEV*
*Just Let Darwin Work*
 

The first thing I do when I get a new batch of 43 and 61 type toroids, I paint a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders use. Yellow for 43 and blue for 61. I don't want any to accidentally get into the "unknown" category. I check the little glass bottles occasionally, but I swear that I still have some after 10 years or more. Once I get more confidence with the nanoVNA, I'll tackle the hoard of the larger tubular types that have found their way into my storage boxes.

Ted, KX4OM
 

Nylon ties also allow easy labeling with a Sharpie 'permanent' pen . One
tie per toroid.

Dave - WØLEV

On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 1:53 AM Ted KX4OM <wirehead73@...> wrote:

The first thing I do when I get a new batch of 43 and 61 type toroids, I
paint a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders
use. Yellow for 43 and blue for 61. I don't want any to accidentally get
into the "unknown" category. I check the little glass bottles occasionally,
but I swear that I still have some after 10 years or more. Once I get more
confidence with the nanoVNA, I'll tackle the hoard of the larger tubular
types that have found their way into my storage boxes.

Ted, KX4OM





--
*Dave - WØLEV*
*Just Let Darwin Work*
 

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 09:53 PM, Ted KX4OM wrote:


I paint a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders use.
Yellow for 43 and blue for 61.
Great idea! I've been buying bright-colored fingernail lacquer from the Dollar Tree store for making bright-colored fishing line sinkers very visible. I use them with a slingshot for getting antenna ropes up over tree branches, and the bright colors help find the end of the line on the ground. Or, stuck up in the tree. (Off topic, I also tie a few inches of very bright colored knitting yarn to the sinker, for better visibility/findability.)

--
Doug, K8RFT
 

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the "off topic" tips. We have to get those wires up *before* the nanoVNA is of any use checking it:)

73,

Bill KU8H

bark less - wag more

On 4/29/21 11:50 AM, DougVL wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 09:53 PM, Ted KX4OM wrote:

I paint a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders use.
Yellow for 43 and blue for 61.
Great idea! I've been buying bright-colored fingernail lacquer from the Dollar Tree store for making bright-colored fishing line sinkers very visible. I use them with a slingshot for getting antenna ropes up over tree branches, and the bright colors help find the end of the line on the ground. Or, stuck up in the tree. (Off topic, I also tie a few inches of very bright colored knitting yarn to the sinker, for better visibility/findability.)
 

Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry. You can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and separately packaged. Now you going to tell me it would costs to much to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part?? I think NOT.

Label them, period. It’s 2020, not 1920.

--
Regards,
Chris K2STP
 

Ted,

The first thing I do when I get a new batch of 43 and 61 type toroids, I paint
a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders use. Yellow
for 43 and blue for 61.
Instead of using your own code, you could also use the standard color code to clearly mark the material type on them, with just two dots! Yellow and orange for 43, blue and brown for 61, orange and brown for 31, and so on. It works just fine with Fair Rite cores. Some other manufacturers use longer, alphanumeric material codes, so they would be harder to mark with color codes.

This would keep you from getting the blues if you happen to buy some 67 cores! :-)

Manfred
 

On 4/29/21 9:54 AM, Chris K2STP wrote:
Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry. You can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and separately packaged. Now you going to tell me it would costs to much to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part?? I think NOT.

Label them, period. It’s 2020, not 1920.
it's not about the "piece part" cost - it's the capital expense of adding a manufacturing step and the equipment and process to do it. If customers don't demand it (with cash on the barrel head) then the company isn't going to do it - they'd rather focus on delivery time and other parts of the manufacturing process.


The "standard expectation" for marking resistors with color stripes was established long ago (pre 1940, I'll bet). So companies do that - because customers buying millions of them asked for it.  The capital expense of setting up the machine to do it is long since retired.   I'll note that you can get leaded resistors with printed (or laser marked) markings on them too, particularly metal film precision units.

I would say that leaded resistors are a legacy product (or becoming so), and I'll bet that they get harder and harder to find, marked however they are.

No volume purchaser has asked for marking of ferrites, so the companies don't do it, at least as a standard product.


You could call the supplier and ask, too?   Fair-rite (or Palomar or Lodestone Pacific) might be happy to label them for you, for a price.

It's like buying lumber - if you're buying carloads, it comes with a bill of lading that tells you what's on the truck. If you buy it retail at Home Depot, each piece has a barcode.  But the Home Depot lumber is more expensive than the carload.
 

What do you do when you have F, J and K cores from Amidon?
:-)

73, Zack W9SZ

On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 1:35 PM Manfred Mornhinweg <manfred@...>
wrote:

Ted,

The first thing I do when I get a new batch of 43 and 61 type toroids, I
paint
a dot on them with the Testors enamel that plastic model builders use.
Yellow
for 43 and blue for 61.
Instead of using your own code, you could also use the standard color code
to clearly mark the material type on them, with just two dots! Yellow and
orange for 43, blue and brown for 61, orange and brown for 31, and so on.
It works just fine with Fair Rite cores. Some other manufacturers use
longer, alphanumeric material codes, so they would be harder to mark with
color codes.

This would keep you from getting the blues if you happen to buy some 67
cores! :-)

Manfred





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Morrie
 

Could the number not be imprinted on the the mold then imparted to the toroids.Especially the larger ones?
Morrie

On 30/04/2021 4:54 am, Chris K2STP wrote:
Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry. You can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and separately packaged. Now you going to tell me it would costs to much to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part?? I think NOT.

Label them, period. It’s 2020, not 1920.
 

The same molds are used for dozens of mixes.
Different molds and the time to switch them out would raise manufacturing costs.

On Thursday, April 29, 2021, 05:07:41 PM CDT, Morrie <z
l2ao@...> wrote:

Could the number not be imprinted on the the mold then imparted to the
toroids.Especially the larger ones?
Morrie

On 30/04/2021 4:54 am, Chris K2STP wrote:
Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry.  You can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and  separately packaged.  Now you going to tell me it would costs to much to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part??  I think NOT.

Label them, period.  It’s 2020, not 1920.
 

Zack,

What do you do when you have F, J and K cores from Amidon?
You label them in Morse code! :-)
 

On 4/29/21 3:07 PM, Morrie wrote:
Could the number not be imprinted on the the mold then imparted to the toroids.Especially the larger ones?
Morrie
Sure, if you're willing to pay for it.  Think about it, though - they make dozens of different materials, and sell them all in the same shapes. So instead of 100 identical molds with no marking, they'd need a dozen sets of 100 molds.

I get the impression that there is a fair amount of "art" in making these things - how much powder is loaded, and where, what the mold shapes are, what the time/temperature is.  Any change requires a fair amount of scrap as you dial the process in. Unless there's a "really good reason" (like a customer with heavy pockets), I don't think they'd do it. Not when they can sell their entire production without markings.

It's not the "feasibility" of a marking scheme - paint works, dye works, strings attached with tags works.  But they all cost something, and unless there's a significant market, they're not going to change.

There are specialty magnetics places - they make cores for unusual applications like cryogenic temperatures, or for space flight applications.  I was talking to some of them about a year ago looking for a weird planar core for an application on the Lunar surface. Their budgetary estimates were NOT cheap, and it's not the material cost, it's the "cut and try" needed to get decent manufacturing yield. We were going to need hundreds or thousands of them, so it's not like a prototype lab where you stamp out 100 and pick the 5 that meet the spec, and eat the 20x price.

There's nothing particularly secret about what goes into the mix - You could grind up anybody's cores and figure out what they're made of.  The "secret sauce" is in what the powders look like before mixing, how they're mixed, what binders are used, and the whole time/temp/pressure when you're forming them.

There are plenty of stories about when the cheap off-shore cores started coming in, and there was a distinct quality change - they'd crack easier, the properties weren't as predictable (larger tolerances), the physical size would be pretty good, but they'd have rough corners that you'd have to sand off.   Those are all "secret sauce" manufacturing stuff. You can't just dump a barrel of cores into a tumbler with a bucket of grit and knock the corners off, like you can with other products - ferrites are really brittle.

So the mfrs are loathe to do anything different than what they already do - they make money in a competitive market doing what they already do.



On 30/04/2021 4:54 am, Chris K2STP wrote:
Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry.  You can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and  separately packaged.  Now you going to tell me it would costs to much to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part??   I think NOT.

Label them, period.  It’s 2020, not 1920.
 

Hey Jim, even more fun.  When they fire the ceramic Ferrite, the cores shrink about 30%.
Kent

On Thursday, April 29, 2021, 08:22:41 PM CDT, Jim Lux <jim@...> wrote:

On 4/29/21 3:07 PM, Morrie wrote:
Could the number not be imprinted on the the mold then imparted to the
toroids.Especially the larger ones?
Morrie
Sure, if you're willing to pay for it.  Think about it, though - they
make dozens of different materials, and sell them all in the same
shapes. So instead of 100 identical molds with no marking, they'd need a
dozen sets of 100 molds.

I get the impression that there is a fair amount of "art" in making
these things - how much powder is loaded, and where, what the mold
shapes are, what the time/temperature is.  Any change requires a fair
amount of scrap as you dial the process in. Unless there's a "really
good reason" (like a customer with heavy pockets), I don't think they'd
do it. Not when they can sell their entire production without markings.

It's not the "feasibility" of a marking scheme - paint works, dye works,
strings attached with tags works.  But they all cost something, and
unless there's a significant market, they're not going to change.

There are specialty magnetics places - they make cores for unusual
applications like cryogenic temperatures, or for space flight
applications.  I was talking to some of them about a year ago looking
for a weird planar core for an application on the Lunar surface. Their
budgetary estimates were NOT cheap, and it's not the material cost, it's
the "cut and try" needed to get decent manufacturing yield. We were
going to need hundreds or thousands of them, so it's not like a
prototype lab where you stamp out 100 and pick the 5 that meet the spec,
and eat the 20x price.

There's nothing particularly secret about what goes into the mix - You
could grind up anybody's cores and figure out what they're made of.  The
"secret sauce" is in what the powders look like before mixing, how
they're mixed, what binders are used, and the whole time/temp/pressure
when you're forming them.

There are plenty of stories about when the cheap off-shore cores started
coming in, and there was a distinct quality change - they'd crack
easier, the properties weren't as predictable (larger tolerances), the
physical size would be pretty good, but they'd have rough corners that
you'd have to sand off.   Those are all "secret sauce" manufacturing
stuff. You can't just dump a barrel of cores into a tumbler with a
bucket of grit and knock the corners off, like you can with other
products - ferrites are really brittle.

So the mfrs are loathe to do anything different than what they already
do - they make money in a competitive market doing what they already do.



On 30/04/2021 4:54 am, Chris K2STP wrote:
Using the “marking costs money” argument is ridiculous, sorry.  You
can buy a mix of 1000 (one THOUSAND) resistors for $8 (eight US
dollars!) on Amazon, ALL OF THEM CLEARLY MARKED with color bands and 
separately packaged.  Now you going to tell me it would costs to much
to add a dot on a $5 or $10 part??   I think NOT.

Label them, period.  It’s 2020, not 1920.
 

Although I agree with the greater point of increased cost, when I think about marking identical molds for differing products I think about variable mold markings (as i have seen many times in the field), not fully redundant sets of molds for each variant...Kind of future-proof, too.
 

On 4/29/21 6:27 PM, KENT BRITAIN wrote:
Hey Jim, even more fun.  When they fire the ceramic Ferrite, the cores shrink about 30%.
Kent
On Thursday, April 29, 2021, 08:22:41 PM CDT, Jim Lux <jim@...> wrote:
key word there... "about"

There are a LOT of products where yield ratio is do or die for staying in business.
n2ktv@frontiernet.net
 

Ferrites (at least most of them) are compaction pressed then sintered at approx 2000 degrees. They are pressed approximately 10-15% oversized to account for shrinkage in the sintering process. It wouldn't be possible to incorporate P/N information in the die

Bruce

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