I decided to buy a few grab bags from Jameco, one fan one and 2 random component ones. Inside of the random component one I found some sort of small glass tube with leads. It looks like a piece of metal with a small copper lead on either side of it, and it's about 12.4mm long . I figured it was a mercury switch, but there's no mercury and then i though it was some sort of magnetic sensor, so i hooked it up to my multimeter. When I checked the resistance, it was negative at first(?), so i flipped the leads and it was positive(?) and then went down when I put a magnet near it. I checked the voltage, and it was producing about 140mA(?) and went down to about 40mA when I put a magnet near it(?). Is something wrong with my meter or is this some weird component I've never heard of? I tried googling it, but i don't really know what I'm looking for.
If nobody knows what it is, oh well, I got 999 other things in the bag.
Any help appreciated, thanks.
jimLee:
Looks like a chip of solar cell. Maybe its a light sensor?
-jim lee
jackrae:
The tip certainly looks like a lens so there might be a directional sensitivity
It is. I said mA in the first post, I meant to say mV; it will only produce about 50-60 µA when held up to very bright light. I also got it up to about 460mV. The directionality is sort of weird. Even if I'm holding the blue part(which is the solar cell piece, I assume) right up to very bright light, putting my finger over the lens makes it produce 0V and 0A, even though the glass capsule is clear. Even knowing what it is now I can't seem to find it anywhere. I might have some use for it, though.
Thanks for all the replies, I'll probably be coming back for the 50 other things that I had no idea what they were.
