Greg Mayman wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 -=> Roy J. Tellason said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "*BIG* TRANSISTORS" on 01-03-04  04:06.....

 RJT> No,  but the cases I show in my ECG book here that are stud-mounted
 RJT> transistors all seem to have pretty much the same pin connections, 
 RJT> and in particular these units do _not_ have a collector terminal that's
 RJT> isolated from the case -- it's quite obvious which of the three
 RJT> terminals connects to the case,  if the C-E distinction is in fact what
 RJT> you were referring to there. 

 GM> Of course. I'd forgotten that side of it... must be getting old 

It's not like you're bumping into these parts every day, though...

 GM> And with DC tests you can measure the current gain of the 
 GM> transistor, which you can't do with an ohmmeter...

 RJT> True,  but gain isn't that much of an issue with power devices.

 GM> I dunno about that. If I'm using a power device to pass 10 amps or 
 GM> so, I'd like to be able to drive it with a considerably lower 
 GM> current. So a reasonably high gain -- say 20 or higher -- is 
 GM> definitely an advantage.

Yeah,  I'd be a bit disappointed if the gain were less than 20.   :-)

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