ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Electrical Nostalgia Ghosts From The Past: Vacuum Tubes

We have an orginal temperature/air pressure controller that has tubes. (We disconnected it, but I can't get them to let me take it home...What if the electronics faiL???)

gpsparky,
I remember, a couple of years ago, in a freezing works where I was working, they had temperature controllers on the gut cooking vats that used a set of valves(tubes).

My memory escapes me as to what type they actually were, but the electrical technicians there had been replacing the solid state parts every 2-3 months, due to the heat.
They tried this valve circuit and that solved the problem.
Good to see that our old school solutions are still working in modern industry.

Oddly enough,
I was at a "deceased sale" of a local Ham operator some years back and I picked up one of his radio sets for little more than a "song".
This thing was an AM 80m CW transmitter and it had the be all and end all of radio gear: the mercury-arc rectifier.
I was working with the guy at the time he built the radio (he was my Elmer) when he was teaching me Morse Code, you just can't replicate that same eerie green glow with LED's.
It used to "twitter" (yeah, we started that too) with the key being pressed and released.

All right Mike, back to the countries separated by a common language topic. What is an "Elmer"?

Larry

It's not a country thing.. it's a ham radio thing..

in the ham radio community, an "Elmer" is another word for "Mentor"

Thanks. Larry C

This is a question for Trumpy are you still active as a Ham if so what is your call sign?I'am ve7gde

5687 = twin triode. May be usable as a decent audio preamp tube.

Thermionic emission has no PN junction voltage drop that solid state components have giving higher quality audio.

Untill recently, well about 15years ago, I was using a Quad 11 set up. This consisted of 2 mono valve (tube) amplifiers which supplied power for the FM radio module and the mixer module and two ancient russian speakers made by Rigonda. sound quality was second to none.

Wife and kids dont appreciate quality and couldn't wait for the system to heat up. Came home one day and found a horrible mass produced 'HI-Fi' thing that just couldn't reproduce anything like depth of sound the Quad 11 could.

Nowadays very few people can even listen to pure audio as everything is stored on pc's or memory cards in mp3 players. Compare an mp3 file to the original played on a turntable and the difference is staggering.

Sorry if I've gone off on a tangent here

Simon

PS I recently picked up two 1950's radios to restore and the seller said he had about 50 tube radios dating from the turn of the century up to the mid sixties that were getting ruined due to damp storage and I could have the lot for a few bucks. Trying to think how to approach the wife on this one.