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Biiiig tubes |
daverj
Vintage Video Wiggler
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 Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:10 pm Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes |
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| metasonix wrote: | Occasionally I get the predictable "what's the biggest tube ever made" question.
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A friend of mine picked up this 3 foot tall tube back in the late 60s or early 70s.
Well, OK, it's not a "real" tube. But it's a cool display with a cut away view of the insides.
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ehdyn
Wiggling with Experience
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:37 am Post subject: |
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This is my personal favorite
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Enginear
Common Wiggler
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:55 am Post subject: |
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Many (actually many, many...many) years ago I worked for a little company who operated a quaint little radio & TV network broadcasting to the world out of an island nation west of mainland europe.
I had the chance to visit some transmitting stations during my time there and saw some tubes/valves very similar to the really big ones pictured elsewhere in this thread. Actually the ones for TV frequencies are called klystrons (think I've got the spelling there - it's late!). They are part tube, part magnetron (as in whats in your microwave oven).
However what I found really fascinating were the shortwave radio transmitters. They had power outputs ranging from 30KW to over 200KW. Almost all were water cooled, with distilled water, and the water was connected directly to, and flowewd round/through the tube anode. They were isolated from ground by 30 foot long lengths of rubber hose, coiled up, because the anodes were at 33 KV or more. The tubes in them were around 2 - 3 feet tal and easily a foot in diameter.
Even more fascinating (to me at least) was the size of these transmitters - most were big enough to walk around in. Not when they were powered! And they all had little narrow-gauge railway tracks in them which were used to facillitate frequency changes. The output coils - quite large pieces of copper pipework - were mounted on little trucks which were run in and out of the transmitters as needed.
The output transformers were something else! Huge, (like 10 foot cubes huge!) and the laminations would "chatter" at the modulating frequency so the transmitter hall ( the size of a football pitch) always had multiple languages all going at the same time.
The other wierd thing about the place was that because there was so much stray RF around, any pair of dissimilar metals that touched but were not mechanically fastened to each other would act as a "diode" junction and rectify/detect the modulation from the RF signals. The result being that if you walked into a quite room, you could hear the window frame talking to you in Mandarin or Russian or some other "exotic" language.
Wish I had some pictures to share but the presence of a camera would have resulted in me losing my job & probably being jailled!!
Hope that's of interst to someone!!
E.
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Enginear
Common Wiggler
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Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:59 am Post subject: |
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| ehdyn wrote: | This is my personal favorite
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So this post appeared while I was typing. The tube wrapping around the metal body and exiting over the top left in the picture would be the water-cooling tube, I think.
E. |
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ehdyn
Wiggling with Experience
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| Enginear wrote: | So this post appeared while I was typing. The tube wrapping around the metal body and exiting over the top left in the picture would be the water-cooling tube, I think.
E. |
Interesting timing..this particular tube used to belong to V. Bush who was the head of MJ-12 |
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Roycie Roller
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:10 am Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes and even biiiiiigger organs |
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| Moog$FooL$ wrote: | old squid fishing globes
i'd really like to see those.
what the hell are they? |
These are on a Japanese squid boat- it's hard to tell how big these are, but i've seen them as big as big watermelons
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Moog$FooL$
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Location: Vancouver, BC.
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:58 am Post subject: |
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thanx Roycie.
i'm assuming those do some lighting for the fishermen.
they look like HID lights of some sort. |
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construct09
Sine me up
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Location: vic, Australia
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| The light attracts the squid |
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Moog$FooL$
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| construct09 wrote: | | The light attracts the squid |
i'm a squid!!
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metasonix
Tube Pioneer
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:37 pm Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes and even biiiiiigger organs |
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| Roycie Roller wrote: | These are on a Japanese squid boat- it's hard to tell how big these are, but i've seen them as big as big watermelons
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Those are 600w sodium-vapor lamps, not tubes. Sorry. I assume the boat has a big auxiliary generator to run them so they can fish all night.
| Quote: | | Actually the ones for TV frequencies are called klystrons (think I've got the spelling there - it's late!). They are part tube, part magnetron (as in whats in your microwave oven). |
Hah? A klystron is not a "part magnetron", they are totally different devices.
But they do the same thing. And they're all vacuum tubes.
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metasonix
Tube Pioneer
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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There's no question what the biggest (conventional) amplifying tube was:
The Eimac 8974/X2159. Still being manufactured today, for really big radio transmitters. (Data sheet here.)
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Metasonix
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construct09
Sine me up
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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80kg!!
That is one heavy tube... |
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Enginear
Common Wiggler
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Location: Canada
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:07 am Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes and even biiiiiigger organs |
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| Quote: | | Actually the ones for TV frequencies are called klystrons (think I've got the spelling there - it's late!). They are part tube, part magnetron (as in whats in your microwave oven). |
Hah? A klystron is not a "part magnetron", they are totally different devices.
But they do the same thing. And they're all vacuum tubes.[/quote]
I don't think you could call Klystrons and Magnetrons (both vacuum tubes in part, as you say) totaly different devices. Their principles of operation aren't completely dissimilar and in terms of size and power output they both cover an enormous spectrum of possibilities.
Anyways, regardless, they are fascinating to look at and scary to use!! |
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Moog$FooL$
Broke Dick Dog
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| yeah i figured those were HID lights. |
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negativspace
Manhattan Analog
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:02 pm Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes and even biiiiiigger organs |
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| metasonix wrote: | | Sorry. I assume the boat has a big auxiliary generator to run them so they can fish all night. |
I believe squid in particular are attracted to light... night fishing with that array of HPS bulbs would probably work well.
(edit: Nevermind, construct09 beat me to it.)
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b3nsf
Super Deluxe Wiggler
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:15 am Post subject: |
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not the biggest... but the least loved tube device ever....
the reverb amp from a leslie...
| Quote: | | Don Leslie wasn't fond of the reverb system in his cabinets |
from here : http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?10584-leslie-reverb-am p/page4
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andrewF
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:46 am Post subject: |
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not exactly big tubes
scored this off the rubbish pile the other day (plus about 50 tubes of ICs)
The centre white circle is a little CRT oscilloscope...of sorts, tho it looks damaged.
Two of the bakelite meters are Vu for audio
Many of the tubes are Sylvania & GE 12xx7 types, just what I like
It has two 590V CT transformers which also do 6.3V@3A and a 6A 6.3V transformer.
New amp coming up!
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metasonix
Tube Pioneer
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Location: up my ass
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| andrewF wrote: | not exactly big tubes
scored this off the rubbish pile the other day (plus about 50 tubes of ICs)
The centre white circle is a little CRT oscilloscope...of sorts, tho it looks damaged. |
Looks like a processing device for video broadcasting or fax or somesuch.
Here is one you cannot buy, on eBay or anywhere else. Because it's the only one known to exist. A prototype 100TS triode with a standard 4-pin base. Regular 100TSs (also called VT-127) were used as pulse modulators in radars, and just had 2 filament pins on the bottom. This thing must have been made for a "special" customer, meaning a top-secret piece of military gear.
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Metasonix
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metasonix
Tube Pioneer
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infradead
Super Deluxe Wiggler
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