The Ware for December 2025 is shown below.
This is just one part of a much more complex ware, but I thought I’d throw just this photo out there for starters because it’s one of the more thought-provoking portions of the ware.
Super curious to see what people come up with! If nobody guesses it off the bat, I’ll add some more hints in a couple of weeks.
Happy holidays!
my guess would be ultra low-noise cooled CCD camera.
it is very similar to the Spectral Instruments 800 series camera that mikeselectricstuff tear down from a genome sequencer https://youtu.be/2WnGhbub6LM?si=18hqbyX8YY4LNLGh&t=223 . this one got an extra wire-bonded PCB, so it is probably a newer or more expensive model than the one Mike tear down.
Assuming this is a similar build as the one Mike tear down, That would make this PCB assembly the preamp board, and the purple part in the middle would be the ceramic back of a 60x60mm CCD sensor. Mike mentioned those sensors alone seems to be about 20000GPB. Someone had commented that “It is not enough how many good dies you get per wafer, but how many good wafers you need to make a good die”, and the documentation actually mentions that these cameras comes with defect file mapping bad pixels, so they are probably making use of CCDs even if the dies are imperfect.
The circular hole is for a copper slug thermally coupling the CCD to a peltier cooler attached to the back side of the vacuum seal.
I’m guessing a chip test fixture, maybe for DRAM
My first though was that this was some kind of ATE part–it has the high pin count that could be reasonably high performing from a signal integrity standpoint (at least from a decade or more ago) and it has a very rigid mounting system for the DUT mounting equipment. But the mount isn’t just very solid, it’s also got room for a vacuum seal and that’s unusual.
So, my next guess was going to be some kind of interface to a vacuum system–maybe for some kind of monitoring or control. But all that exposed G-10 is going to be a constant source of contamination for a high vacuum system. Unless there’s a special seal that goes between this and the next piece, this solution is a no-go.
Which leaves me not knowing what it is other than it’s a reasonably high performance electrical connect which hooks to a vacuum system–but is missing some important pieces to make it functional for that.
The last small clue is that the outside is painted. If this were for industrial equipment, I would want to say that it wouldn’t be painted, but be bare steel. Painted makes me thing it’s for lab equipment and that it matches other parts with a similar livery.
I hope bunny posts more pictures, soon.
Okay, looking at the zoomed in photo, there are a few more interesting thing to note. The bare wires that link the lower PCBs are unusual. Are they there for some kind of thermal or vibrational isolation? If vibrational, they are likely gold to withstand the constant flexing. Could be both. There is some kind of oil/grease on the very bottom part which could–due to the lack of abrasion–is likely there as a thermal interface (or is just contamination). If it’s for thermal reasons, then the lower section may have some kind of mechanical coolling to it–which would need vibrational and thermal isolation.
Looking back at the other comments, the idea that this might be a camera would work out. It would expain the reasonable performance interconnects (and the constant grounding and signal integrity work that shows in the PCB construction) and the thermal features of this equipment.
A camera would likely have a lens assembly which may have moving elements for focus and other optical reasons. That would also have poor high vacuum behavior, so it’s possible this part exists on one side of an optical isolation–sheet of glass or quartz–and that none of these issues really matter. I’m not a vacuum/lab equipment kind of person, so I don’t know where to go at this point.
I am guessing johslarsen is correct:
It seems a a cryogenic device. The vacuum stuff is probably not needed for the vacuum itself, because these boards and the plastic are not vacuum compatible, with producing a good high or ultra-high vacuum, and they and can probably not be baked out 150C or more either. So the vacuum it is probably only needed to pump it down, so the air does condense or freeze on it when it is cooled down.
There seems to be some grease (vacuum seal ?) in the center of the ware, so it is maybe going to look out through the bottom window.
Plugging in whatever goes into these connectors is not going to be fun.
I also think johslarsen is right, but I’m still going to guess the Spectral Instruments 600 Series camera instead.
johslarsen’s points sound right to me. All I can add, is you don’t put fiberglass PCBs in a vacuum system if you care how good the vacuum can be. So given the thin wire-bond jumpers between PCBs, I’m assuming the vacuum structure is there so the sensor (with missing cooler thingy) can operate with minimal thermal conduction from surrounding parts. Also minimized thermal variations due to gas convection currents.
As you might want, to test the thing at ground level, while it is designed to operate normally in the vacuum of space.
So I’d guess the “much more complex ware” is some kind of space instrument.
And… if those two gold F-receptacle contacts at top right are NOT supposed to be bent over and touching adjacent pins, then someone is getting fired.
Looks a bit like something that is a part of a quantum computer. :)