> From:         Robert Ussery[SMTP:uavscience@FRII.COM]
> Sent:         Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:02 PM
> To:   PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject:      [EE:] Strange component ID

> Hello again, Folks.

> I have a mysterious little gadget here that I got from Jameco in a grab-bag.
> It says "Delay Line" on the front, and it's a little black rectangular
> thingie with four pins. Does that sound like anything you've seen before? It
> also has the code "ADL-CP144E" on it.

> The attached photo shows its innards. There is a white translucent glass (?)
> plate with square black dots, covered in a white fiber sheath. I couldn't
> get any positive ohm-meter reading on the black dots, so they're probably
> non-conductive. The pins have wires leading to some kind of electrodes on
> the edge of the plate. Any idea what this is for?

It sounds like a ... delay line. These are used in digital circuits to compensate
for clock skew or impossible to avoid signal delays. The plate is a piezo
material which converts the input signal to an acoustic wave which then
travels to the output electrodes and is converted back to voltage. Typically
the delays are measured in nanoseconds.
There is a small chance that it is an analog delay line (the ADL in the part
number), but the delay can't be all that much, so this is unlikely.

John Power

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