14 Mar
2013
14 Mar
'13
7:44 p.m.
I have zillions of old tubes pulled from radios
and TVs by a guy whose estate was sold-- except
for the tubes. Nobody wanted them.
I'm looking for a simple project I can build
(like a stereo amp) but without the tight
tolerances and high-end ultra-purist attitude I
seem to find whenever I look into it. I just want
to build something that will perform a basic
function and look cool glowing in the dark.
I also have grand-dad's old Heathkit tube tester,
so I have that going for me anyhow.
I've built kits before, but I'm not necessarily
looking for a kit. A decent set of plans with
some suggestions for physical layout and
mounting, for guys like me who came of age in the 555 timer / 74xx TTL age.
-T
At 05:03 PM 3/13/2013, you wrote:
On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 4:50 PM, Cindy Croxton
Electronics Plus
<sales at elecplus.com> wrote:
Nice. I have a few old 12V tubes (NOS from a science lab that was
decomissioned a few years back that had some parts going back to the
mid-1950s - ancient carbon composite resistors and all). I'm looking
at that 12V battery-powered headphone amp project as an easy
get-started project. I think I have everything on hand except the
tube socket.
-ethan
489 . [Commentary] All our science, measured
against reality, is primitive and childlike --and
yet it is the most precious thing we have. --Albert Einstein
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14 Mar
14 Mar
8:37 p.m.
On Mar 14, 2013, at 19:44, Tom <a50mhzham at gmail.com> wrote:
I have zillions of old tubes pulled from radios and
TVs by a guy whose estate was sold-- except for the tubes. Nobody wanted them.
Beware: many of them may be difficult to find data on, and
may also be not-so-useful for audio. Many probably
will be fine, though.
I'm looking for a simple project I can build (like
a stereo amp) but without the tight tolerances and high-end ultra-purist attitude I seem
to find whenever I look into it. I just want to build something that will perform a basic
function and look cool glowing in the dark.
A nice, simple one to start with is an RIAA phono preamp.
There are plenty of no-frills tube schematics online
that should get you started; failing that, try looking for the
Williamson amplifier schematic, which was intended to be
built by amateurs.
Good books I have enjoyed: Valve Amplifiers, by
Morgan Jones (which covers a lot of theory quite well)
and its companion, Building Valve Amplifiers (which
covers a lot of the tricky details involved in building realistic
ones quite nicely). Another good one is Valve & Transistor
Amplifiers by John Linsley Hood, though that is more
a historical review than it is a manual.
As always, and as others have said, BE CAREFUL around
plate voltages. Mains voltages are plenty deadly before
you multiply them by a factor of three or four. I've been
shocked by various high voltages and I don't recommend
it at all; quite frankly, I'm probably lucky to be alive from
some of them.
I also have grand-dad's old Heathkit tube tester,
so I have that going for me anyhow.
I've built kits before, but I'm not necessarily looking for a kit. A decent set
of plans with some suggestions for physical layout and mounting, for guys like me who came
of age in the 555 timer / 74xx TTL age.
Suggestions above. I don't have any specific ones I
can recommend from the Internet at the moment, but I
might suggest either the preamp I suggested above
or a guitar amp, since they have very simple circuits (and
you are far less likely to care if its fidelity is lacking).
- Dave
9:17 p.m.
On 2013 Mar 14, at 5:37 PM, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 14, 2013, at 19:44, Tom <a50mhzham at
gmail.com> wrote:
If I may suggest, the go-to place for tube data is Frank's Electron
tube pages:
http://www.tubedata.org/
I think there may have been 1 or 2 I haven't found there, but IME you
have to be getting pretty obscure for it not to be there. He seems to
be aiming for comprehensiveness, not just popular tubes or just what
audiophiles want.
I have zillions of old tubes pulled from radios
and TVs by a guy
whose estate was sold-- except for the tubes. Nobody wanted them.
Beware: many of them may be difficult to find data on,
10:14 p.m.
On Mar 14, 2013, at 10:00 PM, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
Huh. I used to have the hardest time. It's been a while
since I've had to look. Perhaps the tube data sites have
gotten a lot better since 2006ish? For example, it took
me a full day back then to track down data on the 6C4,
but now it just pops up on Google (I had to search more
than I would have expected to find a decent datasheet
with curves, but it's there at least).
The worst part is that I didn't think that 2006 was that
long ago until I just did the math.
- Dave
Beware: many
of them may be difficult to find data on, and
may also be not-so-useful for audio. Many probably
will be fine, though.
???
Tube data is easy to find, even for very obscure types. 
11:53 p.m.
Huh. I used to have the hardest time. It's been
a while
since I've had to look. Perhaps the tube data sites have
gotten a lot better since 2006ish? For example, it took
me a full day back then to track down data on the 6C4,
but now it just pops up on Google (I had to search more
than I would have expected to find a decent datasheet
with curves, but it's there at least).
The worst part is that I didn't think that 2006 was that
long ago until I just did the math.
Well...yes, lots of things have changes in the past 6 or 7 years...
Anyway...6C4?...really? Data for that tube has been in damn near every
post-War tube databook ever published in the US!
--
Wil;
15 Mar
15 Mar
12:18 a.m.
On 3/14/2013 9:53 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Give the guy a break, the tube manuals are hiding somwehere under
IBM 701 boxes.
Huh. I used
to have the hardest time. It's been a while
since I've had to look. Perhaps the tube data sites have
gotten a lot better since 2006ish? For example, it took
me a full day back then to track down data on the 6C4,
but now it just pops up on Google (I had to search more
than I would have expected to find a decent datasheet
with curves, but it's there at least).
The worst part is that I didn't think that 2006 was that
long ago until I just did the math.
Well...yes, lots of things have changes in the past 6 or 7 years...
Anyway...6C4?...really? Data for that tube has been in damn near every
post-War tube databook ever published in the US! --
Wil;
4148
days inactive
4149
days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
a50mhzham＠gmail.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com