Rectifier tubes that glow aren't necessarily gassy. If they are mercury vapor types, they will glow blue or purple. But don't stare at it too much, it's UV radiation! We had mercury vapor rectifiers in our RCA BC500A transmitter where I used to work 35 years ago. They glowed blue all the time. The mercury vapor rectifiers are high power, the regular rectifiers are medium to low power dissipation. The white stuff in your tube is the "getter" a sulfate compound designed to protect the filament by reacting with oxygen in the tube. This was common practice before thoriated filaments.
The borosilicate glass tubes are made from is the same as light bulbs, it blocks UV radiation, unless doped with another metal, like black light bulbs. (Browns Glass) but that's a different glass recipe Im not all too sure, but I think modern tubes use barium nitrate in some form as the getter material? Do you happen to know what sulfate compound was used back then? I've also noticed something odd, if a new (modern) un-used tube is broken open the small metal trough where the gas adsorbing compound is stored gets slightly warm, not only that but it gives off an odor similar to ozone, the same smell you get off of a negative elecrode of high potential (in air, at STP)
Rubidium (a byproduct of lithium production) was commonly mixed with sulphur to stabilize it, so it wouldn't flare red with a huge ionic discharge, was used as a cheap getter in old tubes. Even so, the old getters would flash on first application of power (usually done in factory) but still could flash the next several startups. I've seen very ancient NOS do just this. They flash reddish, or orange with Rubidium Sulphate getters. Fortunately, better materials were found prior to WWII and thoriated filaments were invented. Many of the newer getters from the war onward were based on graphite mixtures which improved power sinkage, heat dissapation and element sagging. Thanks for the feedback, your video was fun to watch!
Since getters are designed to react to oxigen, and usually result in an electrically inert compound, my guess is that getters can and will react with oxygen in raw atmosphere. You're probably smelling rapid oxidation of the getter material. They always put more in the bulb than what was thought needed to evoke complete evacuation. Even a spent tube can still have unused getter in it, usually the extra getter helps eliminate gassyness with slow envelope leakage over time.
I had an old Lowrey organ that had two slightly gassy 7591 tubes for the output. They always had a purple haze about them. I remember you could crank up the volume, step on the low C pedal, and watch the violet light flicker as it rattled the walls... just with two 7591's! They never gave any trouble despite the fact that they had a little gas in them.
Nice demo of a gassy rect. Nice touch there to not have a capacitor that would have had a voltage doubling effect; I'll bet you know the drill... What happened was the glass support got hot enough to soften (and molten glass is electrically conductive; you can see the red-hot spots on it just before the cathodes touched the anodes), the softened glass allowed the top cathode supports to relax, the tension upon the cathodes released. Well done and thanks for posting. Blue gassed and red plated, with a bit of green.
as a radio ham, this was some great viewing. Love the nice air spaced variable capacitors for tuning. Kilocycles.... yay. None of that kHz kilohertz nonsense.
Vacuum tubes inspired me to build a low light ambient light lamp with a row of tubes. Something like that gassy rectifier would be perfect for such a lamp. It would be pretty rare to find though. Man, would love to come across such a tube... Cool vid!
At one time I had a tube tester, stupid to let it go. I have built high voltage regulator systems with gas regulator tubes ! They work very well and glow !
It look like a mercury rectifier. You have a good idea with the plug/socket adapter and the 5Y3 tube. The GZ34 also may be a good election for this work. At the end your radio sounds very well. Nice video. Thanks for sharing.
I see a Cunningham CX-380 on eBay right now for $20 starting bid with 2 days left. However the seller does not know it's condition. But it looks like you have this all figured out anyway. Nice video! I really enjoyed this one.
Thanks. I was sure I could easily find an exact replacement for the 380 online at reasonable prices, but I didn't even bother to look since I already had a bunch of 5Y3's just hiding in a shoe box for years on end.
Very pretty light show, and nice repair! I'm pretty sure you got the glass insulator/support hot enough to conduct electricity, which caused the sparks at 7:50, then rapid heating and deformation of the structure that caused the short. I've seen that happen at much higher voltages and when hot glass is hit with microwaves.
Am I the only one who was expecting 1920's music to come out of it before realising that it's picking up 21st century radio waves? I'm not a clever man....
Really been cool if old radio broadcast would have came out of there, the stories that radio could tell. the older tech I say is really pretty cool to see running again.
I can hear 1920's & later music through my old radios like that. I have an AM signal transmitter with an mp3 player connected to it loaded with old radio shows and music and the transmitter broadcasts it all to whatever AM frequency I want on the dial. Here's a video of one of my radios tuned to the transmitter, then me changing the station to a local station and back to the transmitter frequency again. ruclips.net/video/3Re3O3hEHN8/видео.html
This is all very cool. My friend used to have a "triple rectifier" and back then I was a dumb drummer and didn't know what it meant. Now I am a dumb mechanical engineer and needed to watch these videos to find out what it meant :) The mechanical engineering paid for the internet connection at least
The field coil was used as a filter to the power supply. You need to account for that with either a choke (as it originally was used as) or add a capacitor between those resistors you added.
Nice radio man! A trf I think, American of course......the transformers are really class...i guess the condensers are all paper since they are originals.. Awesome valve glows!!! I come from a UK valve past and still have a few octal sets. Also I've a 1927 four pin valve Marconi home build battery set.....no soldering all terminal ....resistors that have gold transfers in holders....a regenerative set with three triode valves (2 volt heaters) with basket coils and a rotating inner coil.....coupling transformers that look like they are out of the film "Metropolis" and a parchment glued cone adjustable moving iron speaker. It runs with a two volt lead acid battery for the heaters, a ninety volt zinc carbon battery for the HT, and a grid bias battery 1.5-6V, ( you adjusted the grid bias by changing the tappings for max. volume) It was so early that in those days gain was at a premium, so it was, adjust the grid bias, adjust the moving iron magnet, adjust the positive regeneration variable condenser until it whistled, then back it off a tad and so on. Bizarrely it still works! Lovely old times eh?
I just found your video. Having recently acquire an Atwater Kent 55C without an AK F4 speaker which it is suppose to use with a 4 pin plug. I saw you made some sort of adaption plug that allowed you to use a permanent magnet speaker instead of the field coil AK F4 speaker. I saw the two resistors in your video but do not know what the other coiled spring looking items are. I would like to build one of these for my AK 55C so I can use a PM speaker. Any specifics, drawings or explanations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, great video!
You could have made a nice little decorative light out of the old tube, oh well. 2-part epoxy is really the best thing to use for gluing the socket adapter together. What is the tube tester measuring, plate current?
Join the cub, I was dealing with a submarine electric psu from many years ago, the glowing violet in the tube was quite cool and pleasing to me, at 7" high...o well!
Hi, Thanks so much for the video. I have a Packard Bell 46D. My vacuum tube ER280 has the same problem and color. Can I use 5Y3GT to replace the ER280?
You can try cleaning off the paint in the front, I have an old RCA speaker that had some paint drips on the cabinet. Remember I actually sprayed some contact cleaner (this canned hydrocarbon fluid that evaporates really quick) on the paint and rubbed it with a paper towel. The paint got rubbed off slowly and the wood finish was left intact.
I just came across a gassy EL41 output tube that also gives a rather good light show when turned on. it has lost the getter at the top that has turned more the less transparent white which is a direct proof air has leaked in to the tube.
Air has leaked in and causes it to turn from vacuum tube into gas discharge tube, technically you can put any rectifier tube there if the filament voltage, anode voltage and current is same or higher than original. Nice restoration project.
The glow coming from the failing vacuum tube looked very light purple to violet in this video to me and the bright sort of chrome or mirror tint to the sides of the tube was interesting to see.
a suggestion for the green color: as far as i know getters contain barium. if a barium solution is sprayed into a flame it colors it in a vivid green. barium is also used in fireworks to make green sparks. so maybe a barium pocket in the getter or even an unflashed piece of getter material was hit by the plasma arc and colored it green.
Is the 5Y4g close to that tube..I have a 1938 Philco Im working on..that needs that..It is the full wave rectifier tube...similar to the 5x3 I think...
had a 5y3 do a similar but not as brite as in vid still ran the set BUT after 15mins emission dropped off in only 10 seconds when started to fail!! guess completely stripped cathodes
The tube was glowing because of gas, the vacuum was imperfect. This is NOT due to anything like X-rays. Such was possible with certain of the tubes inside early colour TV's that dissipated huge voltages. Not in the defective rectifier at the start, OK?
Excellent video ! That poor radio was a victim of the horrible "shabby chic" craze, ruining furniture all over the country... I don't suppose you'd have an extra 5Y4G would you 😁
The green color is the getter material. That's the color barium makes when it's excited. I would've been worried about that vacuum tube throwing weird radiation as it burned out.
Can anyone help I got a 1961 seeburg jukebox and fuse was blown when i got it and I put a new one in and they keep blowing so unpluged the 6x4 tube and put in a new fuse and it turned on then pluged the 6x4 tube back in and it blow again. I got a new 6x4 tube today put it in and it lasted maybe 15 seconds before it blow. Does anyone have any clue to whats going on? Thanks
Beam me up Scotty! towards the end of the burn out purple phase looked like the star ship enterprise. also reminds of some effects you see infuturistic pc games (Halo). Talented Hollywood special effects, more like nature copy cats.
Try vapor to loosen the base glue. I was able to remove the base of a 6J8G frequency mixer with vapor without breaking anything, however I think this was not the original glue since it a white/cream colored one sealing the base.
I don’t know, but anytime I see electric plasma rather from radio vacuum tubes or otherwise it really makes my tops of my hands tingle a lot. I’m not sure what causes this maybe because my mind not liking plasma or gives me a nervous reaction to plasma. I’m not sure.
Maybe I'm loosing it a bit, I thought that the double diode is a halfway rectifier not a full wave! My solution to the double diode valve, which seems to be the most common failure is a pair of 1000volt silicon diodes soldered across the valve base.
Well that shows how little I know about old tube radios. If someone asked me about the filter choke on a radio I probably would have responded with something like "Oh yes! I keep those with my muffler bearings on the shelf next to the headlight fluid and just above the box full of board stretchers. But don't knock over my checkerd paint cans on your way back I don't need the colors mixed."
In the fantasy novels they try to mix science and magic (it never works!). Could vacuum tube technology and 3D printing combine to make previously impossible tubes? Would it make sense to do so?
I have seen tubes glow like that because of an extra-hard vacuum(years ago).It can be mistaken for a gassy tube.Usually a gassy tube will have a milky appearance in the glass.(From memory--I used to work on this stuff years ago.I got many burned fingers from removing tubes when they were still hot.
+Michael Henwood Whoops,I spoke too soon.Either that tube is shorted or there is one heck of a load to make the plates turn red like that.(a shorted Filter capacitor,maybe)?
+Michael Henwood Whoops,I spoke too soon.Either that tube is shorted or there is one heck of a load to make the plates turn red like that.(a shorted Filter capacitor,maybe)?
+Michael Henwood These directly heated filaments(no cathode) will sag from the heat if laid on their side while operating and short.This is all coming back to me now.
+Michael Henwood These directly heated filaments(no cathode) will sag from the heat if laid on their side while operating and short.This is all coming back to me now.
Why didn't you get hold of a Valve "80" they are quite plentiful and they are a directly heated full wave rectifier with 5V filament and a UX4 base.... A direct replacement. Early ones were also balloon shaped too.
Arent mercury rectifiers supposed to glow purple? If air had leaked in, I would expect getter to turn white and no color as nitrogen/oxygen and any water that may have leaked in would quench any discharge?
Having loosened the base from the cement a gentle application of a blowtorch to the very ends of the pins would have allowed you to pull the base free of the bulb.:-))
Mercury rectifier tubes glow violet. They are not under vacuum. They operate at the vapor pressure of Mercury. As long as the tube is not arcing and producing DC it is operating normally.
That's a shame you had to disassemble the socket after you superglued it. It was a perfect fit, but things like getting wires on the wrong pins do happen. That's too bad somebody had to mess up the front panel. I'm sure you could refinish it.
+Peter Walker The caps are ganged - via a metal band that links all three. Ganged caps/pots/switches don't have to be on the same shaft as long as there is some sort of mechanical linkage between them.
are you sure that tube is bad its a mercury vapor, and they are more powerful than others, I think if you run it on tube tester for a while it will stabilize, Dan
Rectifier tubes that glow aren't necessarily gassy. If they are mercury vapor types, they will glow blue or purple. But don't stare at it too much, it's UV radiation! We had mercury vapor rectifiers in our RCA BC500A transmitter where I used to work 35 years ago. They glowed blue all the time. The mercury vapor rectifiers are high power, the regular rectifiers are medium to low power dissipation. The white stuff in your tube is the "getter" a sulfate compound designed to protect the filament by reacting with oxygen in the tube. This was common practice before thoriated filaments.
The borosilicate glass tubes are made from is the same as light bulbs, it blocks UV radiation, unless doped with another metal, like black light bulbs. (Browns Glass) but that's a different glass recipe
Im not all too sure, but I think modern tubes use barium nitrate in some form as the getter material? Do you happen to know what sulfate compound was used back then?
I've also noticed something odd, if a new (modern) un-used tube is broken open the small metal trough where the gas adsorbing compound is stored gets slightly warm, not only that but it gives off an odor similar to ozone, the same smell you get off of a negative elecrode of high potential (in air, at STP)
Rubidium (a byproduct of lithium production) was commonly mixed with sulphur to stabilize it, so it wouldn't flare red with a huge ionic discharge, was used as a cheap getter in old tubes. Even so, the old getters would flash on first application of power (usually done in factory) but still could flash the next several startups. I've seen very ancient NOS do just this. They flash reddish, or orange with Rubidium Sulphate getters. Fortunately, better materials were found prior to WWII and thoriated filaments were invented. Many of the newer getters from the war onward were based on graphite mixtures which improved power sinkage, heat dissapation and element sagging. Thanks for the feedback, your video was fun to watch!
Since getters are designed to react to oxigen, and usually result in an electrically inert compound, my guess is that getters can and will react with oxygen in raw atmosphere. You're probably smelling rapid oxidation of the getter material. They always put more in the bulb than what was thought needed to evoke complete evacuation. Even a spent tube can still have unused getter in it, usually the extra getter helps eliminate gassyness with slow envelope leakage over time.
It's not supposed to be white home boy.
Love the light show in the failing tube, thanks for sharing!
Thanks. Glad you liked it as much as I did.
I like how the pbr appars right after you messed up! I feel you. I enjoyed your video, learned a lot about tubes
I had an old Lowrey organ that had two slightly gassy 7591 tubes for the output. They always had a purple haze about them. I remember you could crank up the volume, step on the low C pedal, and watch the violet light flicker as it rattled the walls... just with two 7591's! They never gave any trouble despite the fact that they had a little gas in them.
Nice demo of a gassy rect. Nice touch there to not have a capacitor that would have had a voltage doubling effect; I'll bet you know the drill...
What happened was the glass support got hot enough to soften (and molten glass is electrically conductive; you can see the red-hot spots on it just before the cathodes touched the anodes), the softened glass allowed the top cathode supports to relax, the tension upon the cathodes released. Well done and thanks for posting. Blue gassed and red plated, with a bit of green.
That was awesome!! I came for some info and wow. Got it from this. Enjoyed!
as a radio ham, this was some great viewing. Love the nice air spaced variable capacitors for tuning. Kilocycles.... yay. None of that kHz kilohertz nonsense.
Great video, I love tube radio's and amps....Very informative too dude.....Thanks.
I agree this is pretty spectacular. I love the video you got on this.
Awesome EOL. the green colours were superb ! Nice well made 4pin to 8pin adaptor you made there, pity you had to redo it later. good video.
Vacuum tubes inspired me to build a low light ambient light lamp with a row of tubes. Something like that gassy rectifier would be perfect for such a lamp. It would be pretty rare to find though. Man, would love to come across such a tube... Cool vid!
At one time I had a tube tester, stupid to let it go. I have built high voltage regulator systems with gas regulator tubes ! They work very well and glow !
It look like a mercury rectifier. You have a good idea with the plug/socket adapter and the 5Y3 tube. The GZ34 also may be a good election for this work. At the end your radio sounds very well. Nice video. Thanks for sharing.
I see a Cunningham CX-380 on eBay right now for $20 starting bid with 2 days left. However the seller does not know it's condition. But it looks like you have this all figured out anyway. Nice video! I really enjoyed this one.
Thanks. I was sure I could easily find an exact replacement for the 380 online at reasonable prices, but I didn't even bother to look since I already had a bunch of 5Y3's just hiding in a shoe box for years on end.
Very pretty light show, and nice repair! I'm pretty sure you got the glass insulator/support hot enough to conduct electricity, which caused the sparks at 7:50, then rapid heating and deformation of the structure that caused the short. I've seen that happen at much higher voltages and when hot glass is hit with microwaves.
Beautiful colors!
Am I the only one who was expecting 1920's music to come out of it before realising that it's picking up 21st century radio waves? I'm not a clever man....
I guess you could say you went.... Back to the Future haha
perhaps this might have been what you expected to hear? ruclips.net/video/JitsFHLc0tk/видео.html
+Gary A. DePietro: Now THAT sounds like a nifty idea! ☺🎵🎶🔊
Really been cool if old radio broadcast would have came out of there, the stories that radio could tell. the older tech I say is really pretty cool to see running again.
I can hear 1920's & later music through my old radios like that. I have an AM signal transmitter with an mp3 player connected to it loaded with old radio shows and music and the transmitter broadcasts it all to whatever AM frequency I want on the dial. Here's a video of one of my radios tuned to the transmitter, then me changing the station to a local station and back to the transmitter frequency again. ruclips.net/video/3Re3O3hEHN8/видео.html
I had a small pentode do the same exact thing stopped working but would just glow blue/purple. Looked pretty neat.
I installed a diode rectifier assy...in for now until I get the right tube...nice video..
I think the field coil also doubled as a choke and Hum cancelation in the speaker
10:57 I really like from the start of the radio tube destruction. It gives off a purple and bluish… Almost like a fluorescent black light, huge color
Enjoy this wonderful radio i run mine every day and love it congrats guess i was wrong about the filter caps
David Salny Thank you. I did enjoy the radio while I had it, but I recently sold it at a hamfest.
What beautiful colours.
WHY OH WHY did you destroy that bulb? I could have used that for my time machine.
Zachariah webb traveled through time to revive this post.
This is all very cool. My friend used to have a "triple rectifier" and back then I was a dumb drummer and didn't know what it meant. Now I am a dumb mechanical engineer and needed to watch these videos to find out what it meant :) The mechanical engineering paid for the internet connection at least
Nice. I see you have adopted Mike's problem solving skills - bang it with a screwdriver under fastmotion.
Yes. mikeselectricstuff is precisely where I learned that method.
Resistors and diodes underneath and dummy the tube with heater voltage only. Or is that sacrilege?
You killed ,beautiful - vintage ! vacuum tubes -the rectifier !? It is a crime :(. How she would look in a makeshift Regen radio ! ...73
What a beautiful display
The field coil was used as a filter to the power supply. You need to account for that with either a choke (as it originally was used as) or add a capacitor between those resistors you added.
Nice radio man! A trf I think, American of course......the transformers are really class...i guess the condensers are all paper since they are originals..
Awesome valve glows!!! I come from a UK valve past and still have a few octal sets. Also I've a 1927 four pin valve Marconi home build battery set.....no soldering all terminal ....resistors that have gold transfers in holders....a regenerative set with three triode valves (2 volt heaters) with basket coils and a rotating inner coil.....coupling transformers that look like they are out of the film "Metropolis" and a parchment glued cone adjustable moving iron speaker. It runs with a two volt lead acid battery for the heaters, a ninety volt zinc carbon battery for the HT, and a grid bias battery 1.5-6V, ( you adjusted the grid bias by changing the tappings for max. volume)
It was so early that in those days gain was at a premium, so it was, adjust the grid bias, adjust the moving iron magnet, adjust the positive regeneration variable condenser until it whistled, then back it off a tad and so on. Bizarrely it still works!
Lovely old times eh?
Nice!
I just found your video. Having recently acquire an Atwater Kent 55C without an AK F4 speaker which it is suppose to use with a 4 pin plug. I saw you made some sort of adaption plug that allowed you to use a permanent magnet speaker instead of the field coil AK F4 speaker. I saw the two resistors in your video but do not know what the other coiled spring looking items are. I would like to build one of these for my AK 55C so I can use a PM speaker. Any specifics, drawings or explanations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, great video!
Those old radios are cool.
You could have made a nice little decorative light out of the old tube, oh well. 2-part epoxy is really the best thing to use for gluing the socket adapter together. What is the tube tester measuring, plate current?
Join the cub, I was dealing with a submarine electric psu from many years ago, the glowing violet in the tube was quite cool and pleasing to me, at 7" high...o well!
Hi, Thanks so much for the video. I have a Packard Bell 46D. My vacuum tube ER280 has the same problem and color. Can I use 5Y3GT to replace the ER280?
You can try cleaning off the paint in the front, I have an old RCA speaker that had some paint drips on the cabinet. Remember I actually sprayed some contact cleaner (this canned hydrocarbon fluid that evaporates really quick) on the paint and rubbed it with a paper towel. The paint got rubbed off slowly and the wood finish was left intact.
I just came across a gassy EL41 output tube that also gives a rather good light show when turned on. it has lost the getter at the top that has turned more the less transparent white which is a direct proof air has leaked in to the tube.
It looked almost as if the god particle was about to form inside that tube for a moment
I don’t even know such a vintage radio can still come in contact with the modern stations have today
Air has leaked in and causes it to turn from vacuum tube into gas discharge tube, technically you can put any rectifier tube there if the filament voltage, anode voltage and current is same or higher than original. Nice restoration project.
The glow coming from the failing vacuum tube looked very light purple to violet in this video to me and the bright sort of chrome or mirror tint to the sides of the tube was interesting to see.
a suggestion for the green color: as far as i know getters contain barium. if a barium solution is sprayed into a flame it colors it in a vivid green. barium is also used in fireworks to make green sparks. so maybe a barium pocket in the getter or even an unflashed piece of getter material was hit by the plasma arc and colored it green.
Do you still have the original top casing for the radio or did it does not have the casing ever since you’ve got it to repair it?
Is the 5Y4g close to that tube..I have a 1938 Philco Im working on..that needs that..It is the full wave rectifier tube...similar to the 5x3 I think...
Used to re Ferb old tv tubes with the bakelite base. Had a big solder sucker. Heat the pins. "Pop" then vibrate the tube. the "cap" dropped off.
Is this similar to how auroras are made? Charged particles interacting with the thin outer atmosphere.
Looks almost like Cherenkov radiation. Awesome footage...
Did you change out any wet capacitors?
had a 5y3 do a similar but not as brite as in vid still ran the set BUT after 15mins emission dropped off in only 10 seconds when started to fail!! guess completely stripped cathodes
that was the most beautiful death of a tube I've seen, awesome video man :D
The tube was glowing because of gas, the vacuum was imperfect.
This is NOT due to anything like X-rays. Such was possible with certain of the tubes inside early colour TV's that dissipated huge voltages. Not in the defective rectifier at the start, OK?
Type 80 rectifiers actually used to be more common than 5Y3 ones, and adapters existed to use 80 tubes their place.
This 55 radio chassis was
used in several console cabinets and also a tabletop metal cabinet model.
hey ???? for ya. since you also have a 260 simpson, do you have any leads on a proper back? mines in a back thats not for the meter.
Excellent video !
That poor radio was a victim of the horrible "shabby chic" craze, ruining furniture all over the country...
I don't suppose you'd have an extra 5Y4G would you 😁
The green color is the getter material. That's the color barium makes when it's excited.
I would've been worried about that vacuum tube throwing weird radiation as it burned out.
if the tube has gone gassy why is the getter material still quite good? Very shiny!
how did you get the base off the 80 tube without breaking it
cool video, I laughed when you said sob... been there before.
That looks really neat are you sure you're not getting x-rays from off of that tube
good video lol, do any of your radios use 12ax7 tubes?
Thee field coil of the speaker also acted as a filter choke. The air gap kept it from saturating.
Next time, acetone readily dissolves Super glue. Alcohol (Isopropyl) makes PVA (Hot-snot) glue release too.
Thanks for the tip. Didn't know that.
@@ElectronicTonic156 Don't use acetone on plastic... It will melt.
The replies raised my knowledge
Can anyone help I got a 1961 seeburg jukebox and fuse was blown when i got it and I put a new one in and they keep blowing so unpluged the 6x4 tube and put in a new fuse and it turned on then pluged the 6x4 tube back in and it blow again. I got a new 6x4 tube today put it in and it lasted maybe 15 seconds before it blow. Does anyone have any clue to whats going on? Thanks
Beam me up Scotty! towards the end of the burn out purple phase looked like the star ship enterprise. also reminds of some effects you see infuturistic pc games (Halo). Talented Hollywood special effects, more like nature copy cats.
What our the four black box's on the back behind the tubes
Try vapor to loosen the base glue. I was able to remove the base of a 6J8G frequency mixer with vapor without breaking anything, however I think this was not the original glue since it a white/cream colored one sealing the base.
You popped it!
joblessalex to many photons
I don’t know, but anytime I see electric plasma rather from radio vacuum tubes or otherwise it really makes my tops of my hands tingle a lot. I’m not sure what causes this maybe because my mind not liking plasma or gives me a nervous reaction to plasma. I’m not sure.
Please check filter block they are always bad on the ak 55&60and will blow out rectifier tubes as fast as you can change them... dave
Maybe I'm loosing it a bit, I thought that the double diode is a halfway rectifier not a full wave! My solution to the double diode valve, which seems to be the most common failure is a pair of 1000volt silicon diodes soldered across the valve base.
think would look and look to find a.original tube for it.,you might try antique radio supply ,I am sure it's a hard time but I still would look
ERIC WASATONIC, why would a designer apply high voltage on the shielding on metal tubes instead of using ground?
Nice radio, Does the Field coil double as a Filter choke for the B+ Supply?
No, in this radio it does not (I just got one, myself, and am in the process of repairing it).
Well that shows how little I know about old tube radios. If someone asked me about the filter choke on a radio I probably would have responded with something like "Oh yes! I keep those with my muffler bearings on the shelf next to the headlight fluid and just above the box full of board stretchers. But don't knock over my checkerd paint cans on your way back I don't need the colors mixed."
@@huntsbychainsaw5986 filter chokes are always by the left handed screwdrivers!
amazed you still have AM broadcasts in the U.S.
Lmao really? Wow
Digital cameras show infrared we normally can't see, remote transmitter LED blinking or a stove top element will glow purple.
Isn't that possibly a mercury type tube? They glow some awesome colors when working properly.
In the fantasy novels they try to mix science and magic (it never works!). Could vacuum tube technology and 3D printing combine to make previously impossible tubes? Would it make sense to do so?
That was quite a light show.
I have seen tubes glow like that because of an extra-hard vacuum(years ago).It can be mistaken for a gassy tube.Usually a gassy tube will have a milky appearance in the glass.(From memory--I used to work on this stuff years ago.I got many burned fingers from removing tubes when they were still hot.
+Michael Henwood Whoops,I spoke too soon.Either that tube is shorted or there is one heck of a load to make the plates turn red like that.(a shorted Filter capacitor,maybe)?
+Michael Henwood Whoops,I spoke too soon.Either that tube is shorted or there is one heck of a load to make the plates turn red like that.(a shorted Filter capacitor,maybe)?
+Michael Henwood These directly heated filaments(no cathode) will sag from the heat if laid on their side while operating and short.This is all coming back to me now.
+Michael Henwood These directly heated filaments(no cathode) will sag from the heat if laid on their side while operating and short.This is all coming back to me now.
That TV-7 tube tester of his will test for gassy tubes, he could used it to test before he destroyed the rare 380.
Why didn't you get hold of a Valve "80" they are quite plentiful and they are a directly heated full wave rectifier with 5V filament and a UX4 base.... A direct replacement. Early ones were also balloon shaped too.
And just like that... I now love tubes 😁
I wish I would have seen this sooner I have the rectifier you need in the bin
Arent mercury rectifiers supposed to glow purple? If air had leaked in, I would expect getter to turn white and no color as nitrogen/oxygen and any water that may have leaked in would quench any discharge?
The glowing is an inert gas at very low pressure used on old high current diodes that's what causes the glow
Having loosened the base from the cement a gentle application of a blowtorch to the very ends of the pins would have allowed you to pull the base free of the bulb.:-))
Yes I agree with you
The getter looked perfect, how could the tube be gassy?
But seriously seen those glowing radio tubes makes my hands tingle a whole lot. I’m not scared of plasma it’s just that it makes my hands freak out.
Mercury rectifier tubes glow violet. They are not under vacuum. They operate at the vapor pressure of Mercury. As long as the tube is not arcing and producing DC it is operating normally.
Don't you need to replace the inductive effect of the field coil as well? Isn't it the filter choke for the power supply?
+Admiral Quality Yes, the field coil does provide inductance to filter the DC, but I don't think I realized it at the time.
+Eric Wasatonic Odd that it seemed to work anyway. I'd expect it to hum badly.
You risked an x-ray contamination!
That would have to be at voltages 800-1000 or more
And a bad tube that is leaky
+John McFerren think you mean kilovolts?
ok
You mean x-ray exposure not contamination.
I like how he calmly shows the leaking tube....
If that tube failed in the radio it woud have taken the rest of the radio with it.
looked like the core from Forbidden Planet for awhile.
That's a shame you had to disassemble the socket after you superglued it. It was a perfect fit, but things like getting wires on the wrong pins do happen. That's too bad somebody had to mess up the front panel. I'm sure you could refinish it.
So they didn't a gang for the tuning, but separate caps I wonder why? Is it multiband band?
+Peter Walker The caps are ganged - via a metal band that links all three. Ganged caps/pots/switches don't have to be on the same shaft as long as there is some sort of mechanical linkage between them.
Peter Walker I think superhet was patented, and Atwater Kent stuck with TRF for quite a while. Thus the precision ganged variable cap tuning
Weren't there solid state rectifierrs that plunged into tube sockets as a replacement?
+jsl151850b It would be sacrilege to use solid state components in a radio like this.
+Barnekkid mmm, sacrilege, tasty. Hybrid abominations look fine to me ;)
+jsl151850b Selenium rectifiers
are you sure that tube is bad its a mercury vapor, and they are more powerful than others, I think if you run it on tube tester for a while it will stabilize, Dan
You could have had a machine shop make you a tube base from high temp plastic and some brass or steel pins.
hej man,
do you need a replacement?
cheers