Muff's Modules & More

metasonix · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:00 pm Post subject: Biiiig tubes

Occasionally I get the predictable "what's the biggest tube ever made" question.

Since these popped up on the TCA mailing list recently, I'll post a couple.

First, if you ever buy an old 862 transmitting tube, you've gotta get it home. How? It's very big, and yet very fragile. It is a water-cooled design from the late 1920s.

Here's an idea:

And if you are lucky enough to find a giant tube in its original packing crate, this is what it will look like. (This is a giant x-ray tube for industrial uses, like x-raying huge metal castings for defects. You put 1.5 megavolts on this one.)

rico loverde · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:08 pm Post subject:

very cool. love the look of them.

pulse_divider · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:40 pm Post subject:

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:43 pm Post subject:

obscurerobot · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:43 pm Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes

construct09 · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:20 pm Post subject:

My brother found this old 'SONOTONE' hearing aid at a garage sale...

metasonix · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:42 am Post subject:

construct09 · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:50 am Post subject:

Cool! you sure know your thermionics

Kent · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:06 am Post subject:

I wanna see the Metasonix hearing aid. But made with the big fire bottles.

daverj · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:16 pm Post subject:

Somewhere I've got what I was told was an old x-ray tube. It's about the size of a 24oz Pepsi bottle. Not sure where it ended up. Probably in the bottom of a box in storage. I'll find it again some day.

Cat-A-Tonic · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:11 pm Post subject:

metasonix · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:17 pm Post subject:

Here's something you don't see every day, even if you're Swedish:
pre-WWII Swedish vacuum tubes. The second one is a tuning-eye indicator.

cornutt · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:52 pm Post subject:

Why Adapter · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:09 pm Post subject:

Reminds me of an exhibit I saw at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry with a like 10000 watt incandescent light bulb, intended for optical research. Fillament looked like those big springs on a screen door.

The bulb I saw did not light up, BTW.

metasonix · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 10:14 pm Post subject:

If you ever see a 152T triode for sale, BUY IT.
Because 152Ts are extremely rare and highly collectible. (The green glass contains uranium--supposedly it made the glass-metal seals stronger.)

andrewF · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:02 pm Post subject:

In '04 I went to my favorite tube shop in Akihabara to find the place cleaned out.
There were just about 10 boxes of tubes in a pile and an old lady sitting on a chair.
She told me they were moving to a new store and the boxes were for throwing out, but I could take anything I wanted for free.
Very excited I started looking thru the boxes but most of them were marked with "Property of US Navy" and a radio-active symbol.....no idea what they were, about the size of a 6CM5, mostly all metal.
I figured I wasn't going to be too popular trying to bring them on the plane home to Australia.

In one box was a bag of seventy 6111 sub-mini dual triodes = score!

metasonix · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:34 pm Post subject:

jake · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:44 am Post subject:

suitandtieguy · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:59 am Post subject:

back when i worked at a TV station, i remember seeing the Klystron tube in the transmitter (or maybe an old tube, it's a bit hazy.)

i remember it being pretty big.

i have no interesting tube pics to show. my collection is extremely pedestrian. the most exotic tube i think i use is an OC3, the regulator in a Leslie amplifier. it's pretty ... it glows purple.

frequencycentral · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:10 am Post subject: Small is the new 'big' ;-)

Small is the new 'big' ! These are two DM160 indicator tubes http://www.r-type.org/pdfs/dm160.pdf They're the smallest tubes I've ever seen! I'm cascading them into each other for overdrive. I'm running them from a 120v SMPS. They flash in time with my strumming. grin

But they're microphonic as hell. d'oh!

They quite lierally ring when you hit a note that matches the filaments' resonant frequencies. 1v filament - looks like a tiny reverb spring.....

My tube collection is mostly small but extensive. Dozens of submini 6111, 6021, 6112, 5902, 5672, 5840..........plus a few 12AU and 12AX7. This year I want to start playing with some of those Russian subminis.

construct09 · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:44 am Post subject:

Metasonix...whats your view on NOS vs new, modern tubes?
Can they make them like they used to?
7025s,el34s and 6L6s for example...

Spiked Lunch · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:11 am Post subject:

How about a mercury arc rectifier. Does it count as a valve?

metasonix · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: Re: Small is the new 'big' ;-)

metasonix · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:45 am Post subject:

theabsent · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:58 am Post subject:

daverj · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:00 pm Post subject:

Damn!! I may have to dig through my stash of tubes to see if there's anything people are looking for. Most of the (6,000 or so) tubes that I have are for old TVs and radios. And a lot of them are in boxes but appear to have been pulled rather than NOS. (lettering is rubbed on many of them, showing they were handled at some point) I picked them up in the 90s when I was into collecting and repairing old radios & TVs.

I wonder if any of my tube testers still work.

metasonix · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:50 pm Post subject:

The TCA list members are stumped by this number. It's a power tetrode used in things like industrial RF induction heaters, but this particular number is a mystery.

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:21 am Post subject:

is that some kinda brass heat sink??

hmmm.....

either way the whole thing looks fantastic.... crafty.

daverj · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:55 pm Post subject:

construct09 · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:10 am Post subject:

Wish there were more people like you in the world daverj

b3nsf · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:27 am Post subject:

I've got one of these leslie reverb amps, they seem very unpopular... think there's any nasty things I could do or just ebay it?

Also they use two light bulbs in the circuit for "limiting" thumbs up

metasonix · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:13 am Post subject:

metasonix · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:11 am Post subject:

Old RCA "map" boxes. The big thing with the screw base is an 876 constant-current lamp, or "barretter".

metasonix · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:13 am Post subject:

metasonix · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:21 am Post subject:

hiawog · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:31 am Post subject:

this thread is awesome. thanks guys for sharing such cool pix

mystico · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:11 am Post subject:

construct09 · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:41 am Post subject:

The map boxes are great!

Roycie Roller

Moog$FooL$

old squid fishing globes [/quote]

i'd really like to see those.
what the hell are they?

daverj · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:10 pm Post subject: Re: Biiiig tubes

ehdyn · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:37 am Post subject:

This is my personal favorite

Enginear · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:55 am Post subject:

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.

Enginear · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:59 am Post subject:

ehdyn · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:15 am Post subject:

Roycie Roller

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:58 am Post subject:

thanx Roycie.
i'm assuming those do some lighting for the fishermen.
they look like HID lights of some sort.

construct09 · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:54 pm Post subject:

The light attracts the squid

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:38 pm Post subject:

metasonix

metasonix · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:45 pm Post subject:

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.)

construct09 · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject:

80kg!!
That is one heavy tube...

Enginear

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:33 pm Post subject:

yeah i figured those were HID lights.

negativspace

b3nsf · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:15 am Post subject:

not the biggest... but the least loved tube device ever....

the reverb amp from a leslie...

andrewF · Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:46 am Post subject:

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!

metasonix · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:09 am Post subject:

metasonix · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:21 am Post subject:

You guys like really serious digital clocks?

Try this one.

infradead · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:28 am Post subject:

b3nsf · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:43 am Post subject:

tube touch sensing elevator button

A 2040 tube rebadged by Otis and used as a touch sensor. A DC voltage with an AC reference to earth was used to detect the vicinity of an earthed object (a finger) and latch by initiating a neon discharge. There are three connections. A large plate, a loop of wire just above the plate and a glass sleeved centre electrode that is exposed just under the top of the tube in the touch sensing area. from here: http://www.bigclive.com/

mecanikill · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:09 pm Post subject:

My grandfather used to work for the US Army Reaserch in the late 40's - 60's and has a whole building full of crazy tube and giant pieces of equipment with huge tubes and shit. Maybe someday I can figure out what to do with some of it and make something kool with some of it.

metasonix · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:34 am Post subject:

SV572 triode amp by Arto Terho in Finland, from one of my old designs.

metasonix · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:12 pm Post subject:

metasonix · Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 2:48 am Post subject:

TCA member John Rehwinkel has got himself a CK1414 Symbolray tube.
He's building a circuit to actually use it to generate characters. That's even more insane than building a tube synthesizer--a lot more.

All documented on this Flickr.

metasonix · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 3:09 pm Post subject:

5779 ignitron:

And if that's not big enough, this guy wants to sell you a giant mercury-pool rectifier. Please note that it is probably illegal to ship such a thing anywhere.

haiku-ish · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:11 am Post subject:

http://historische-elektronik.piranho.de/Hyperlink%20F/EL6471%201kW%20 Groszverstaerker.htm

Moog$FooL$ · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:19 pm Post subject:

been a couple of months since a posting... by anyone!!! evil

come on motherfuckers!! Metasonix!

what you got??? eek!

Chiefy11 · Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:39 pm Post subject:

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/msg/3265369522.html

These are near me, if they're worth anything to anybody here, I might pick it up for a finder's fee. There's quite a lot too.

This on the other hand is mine. ALL MINE!!

metasonix · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:25 am Post subject:

cephalopod · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 5:15 pm Post subject:

carlfunken · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:11 pm Post subject:

robot porn applause

berud · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:26 am Post subject:

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