How to identify mystery Beckman military parts from a missile?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 02:13:41 pm
content: Figured I'd ask here since there's no greater concentration of combined old salt engineers and new blood, and it's a good bet thatsomebodyknows about these.I'm in the process of doing pretty much the only Foreign Materials Exploitation in the open space for fun on a 1970s era missile and have run into mystery components that I have run into walls identifying, they're odd quad-dip(ish) ceramic packs labeled Beckman, but all my searching comes up dry, even worked backchannel contacts to no avail.Pictured embedded in"Schmoo de Sidewinder" (pending identification, sent off to get mass spec'd and NMR'd)And back side in-situ, note twin quad-dip footprints and more schmoo.Side note; if anyone knows how to identify vacuum tube circuits that would also be a huge help, this thing is a dinosaur and I'd like to wake it from its' looooong sleep to understand how it works!Any help is greatly appreciated.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 03:32:10 pm
content: Well, first off it is a hybrid, so could be almost anything from a trimmed resistor array, to a complete set of amplifiers and sample and hold circuits, all assembled from a mix of dies on the ceramic surface, with wire bonds, printed trimmed resistors, and bare die diodes, transistors and capacitors soldered to the substrate, to complete SSI IC dies doing logic, all under the can. Number of leads helps a lot, especially how many are actually used.But looking there, it is likely they are acting as synchronous amplifiers, to convert synchro signals or such to DC control voltages for use in the missile, seeing as there are 2 near identical channels.

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 04:29:13 pm
content: I do not think they're synchro amps, considering the fin drive below the board is based around gas metering via electromagnetic flapper valves, same gas drives the turboalternator that feeds power to the whole thing, they're not really closed loop either, no positional feedback from this generation of drive as that was a 1980s era improvement on the follow on generation.Particularly, this is pretty much just a newer seeker slapped on an improved gas servo system and same guidance computer from the 1950-60 era model, verified against museum pieces and a friend's soviet copy of the legacy generation.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 05:50:22 pm
content: As I recall there is quite a bit of open source information on this generation of missiles. Google with terms like simulation or guidance along with the missile type.

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 07:06:47 pm
content: I unfortunately have already taken all of those Dist A materials that are on the web and built them into my archive and used them to form out the skeleton of understanding on the platform, but it still leaves a ton of questions with more specifics that aren't really covered. In progress are a literal stack of FOIAs submitted to DOTN and NAVAIR to dig out manuals and development documentation.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2022, 09:03:40 pm
content: There will be a number of specifics that will not be covered. Some of which are not obvious even with full schematics at hand. The real secret sauce is very closely held, and unfortunately in many cases lost. One of the ironic things about this is that there are many cases where the foreign material exploitation types are better able to reproduce a particular weapon than the original developer.