I am old enough to remember taking the back off of our black and white TV, removing all the tubes (there was a diagram on the inside of the back showing which tubes went where), putting the tubes in a sack, and riding my bicycle to the local pharmacy, which had a tube tester and sold replacement tubes. You'd look up the tube in a book, which would tell you which socket to put the tube in, and what position to put several rotary switches. Then you'd press a button and look at a meter. If the needle was in the green zone, the tube was okay. If in the yellow zone, it was questionable. In the red, it was bad and needed to be replaced. I went through this not because the TV wasn't working, but because I wanted to play with the tube tester. God bless my parents, because I took everything apart held together with screws and bolts.
Are you sure we weren’t separated at birth? This is exactly the sort of thing I did as a kid. And I wasn’t constrained even by nuts, bolts, or screws; I could get most anything apart, as long as it wasn’t welded. I’ve still got a big, black garbage bag full of old radio/TV tubes that I pulled from these endeavors. Later I even put together some Radio Shack kits, and even a few Heathkits. Yeah, those were the days.
And now all electronics have a warning that says don't open this device there are no serviceable parts inside. Plus don't open because you can get an electrical shock
@ 4:00 Most Fluke DMM's from the 80 series, and Im sure the 180's, have a Conductance - "Nanosiemens" measurement function (Conductance is the inverse of resistance, 1G ohm measures to 1 nS) , that, will let you measure up/down to 0.01nS, or to 100G ohms with a low voltage. It is also on some older Fluke as well as higher end Brymen DMM's, and some of the Fluke's it's an "easter egg", and, I made a video on it.
I have the TC162 and it's a great tube tester. I changed out all of the carbon comps and cleaned all the sockets with 91% alcohol and it's like brand new. To check the 100M resistor, put it in parallel with the other two resistors and the three should measure 996 ohms. I enjoy your videos.
I have the same exact tube tester among other Hickok mutual conductance testers and this one is great for testing grid leakage. I glued a prescription medicine bottle on the octal plug. Small size fits perfectly on the shoulder of the plug.
I have one of those it's a great tube checker when I'm doing emission test after it's fully warmed up a step-down the filament voltage one notch when I do the grid test I wait till the tube is fully warmed up to get a good true reading
Hmm very interesting Tony, i always wondered how tube testers were calibrated, now that i have a MU-150 that i'm about to recap, i think i'll give it a go at calibrating it also. Thank's for sharing, be well.
The Sencore line of emission testers are leaders in grid leakage testing capabilities. In rare cases I found some tubes took up to 5 minutes before the grid leakage slowly moved and failed the tube, and I proved this in a working circuit. Even my B&K 747 failed to detect some of these faults, having the right equipment that is properly calibrated makes all the difference.
cool device Tony,it may help on my BK747 grid emissions calibration,the pot is maxed out and only getting about 80% needle swing.even got a 100 meg resistor from Digikey,thanks!
My mighty mite is my favorite tester out of the three I have, including my military mutual conductance one. I've never calibrated it. Thanks for the video I'm going to do this.
I have some old sovjet/gdr digital equipment for measuring resistors like that and these instruments are surprisingly accurate too (4+ digits) for their age (tested in a lab here in town). One instrument goes up into gigaohms - only downside of these things is, they weight like a ton and are humongous. Anyway ... nice project and well executed. Mayhaps i should check for a tube tester too - but these things are quite expensiv most of the time due to "rare/vintage/whatnot". Best wishes from germany, Tony!
I have the TC-162 that I imagine will need some calibration. I will look into replacing the old single-turn adjustment controls with a multi-turn pot. That should make adjustments less touchy and easier to accomplish.
Hi Tony, years ago I acquired a knight kit emissions tester and damaged a bunch of tubes in my friends TV, I didn't realize what I had done until much later. I won't use an emission tester to this day. I now have a TV7 that I really like. Rich
Thanks for contributing to the knowledge base of the community Tony, I always enjoy the ride along. Any ideas were to find calibration data and schematics for other tube testers? I have a 1969 Mercury 1200 tube tester, and an old Hickok "card-o-matic" tube tester which I have been looking for calibration data on these for years, and no luck.
Shouldn’t you have zeroed out the meters at the front panel before running your calibration analysis ? From the angle i saw it looked like the pointer was past the zero , just curious if you checked that out before adjusting the meters from the inside pot ? Thanks for the cool video .
Thanks for the video Tony, nice one. Any issues with calibrating while the meter was vertical? Assuming it normally operates when flat to the table. Curious to know, some meters get cranky when they are out of their normal plane of operation... I have been keeping my eye out for a (reasonable!) Mighty Mite for a while now, no luck yet. I think I have to hit a few ham swap meets this year. Cheers,
When I was an apprentice electrician my journeyman had me hold the 2 leads of a megger. It was a crank style megger and he cranked the megger and boy oh boy did I get a nice jolt!! It was kind of my initiation into the trade. lol.
In our electronics class in high school the teacher took a magneto from an old crank telephone and had everyone hold hands in a circle. The first one in line held one wire, and the last person in line held the other wire. The instructor then cranked the handle while everyone felt a pretty generous tingle. This was the demonstration of series resistance in a circuit.
I am old enough to remember taking the back off of our black and white TV, removing all the tubes (there was a diagram on the inside of the back showing which tubes went where), putting the tubes in a sack, and riding my bicycle to the local pharmacy, which had a tube tester and sold replacement tubes. You'd look up the tube in a book, which would tell you which socket to put the tube in, and what position to put several rotary switches. Then you'd press a button and look at a meter. If the needle was in the green zone, the tube was okay. If in the yellow zone, it was questionable. In the red, it was bad and needed to be replaced. I went through this not because the TV wasn't working, but because I wanted to play with the tube tester. God bless my parents, because I took everything apart held together with screws and bolts.
Are you sure we weren’t separated at birth? This is exactly the sort of thing I did as a kid. And I wasn’t constrained even by nuts, bolts, or screws; I could get most anything apart, as long as it wasn’t welded. I’ve still got a big, black garbage bag full of old radio/TV tubes that I pulled from these endeavors. Later I even put together some Radio Shack kits, and even a few Heathkits. Yeah, those were the days.
@Mr Calvin Richardson I'm sure X-ray Tony's audience have similar stories.
And now all electronics have a warning that says don't open this device there are no serviceable parts inside. Plus don't open because you can get an electrical shock
I love this additional not-exactly-a-stereo-repair content.
@ 4:00 Most Fluke DMM's from the 80 series, and Im sure the 180's, have a Conductance - "Nanosiemens" measurement function (Conductance is the inverse of resistance, 1G ohm measures to 1 nS) , that, will let you measure up/down to 0.01nS, or to 100G ohms with a low voltage. It is also on some older Fluke as well as higher end Brymen DMM's, and some of the Fluke's it's an "easter egg", and, I made a video on it.
I have the TC162 and it's a great tube tester. I changed out all of the carbon comps and cleaned all the sockets with 91% alcohol and it's like brand new. To check the 100M resistor, put it in parallel with the other two resistors and the three should measure 996 ohms. I enjoy your videos.
I have the same exact tube tester among other Hickok mutual conductance testers and this one is great for testing grid leakage. I glued a prescription medicine bottle on the octal plug. Small size fits perfectly on the shoulder of the plug.
Really interesting, Tony.
Thank you for this.
Peace, joy, happiness and good health for you too!
Cheers,
Mark
Thanks Tony, and for you the same wishes...😊
I have one of those it's a great tube checker when I'm doing emission test after it's fully warmed up a step-down the filament voltage one notch when I do the grid test I wait till the tube is fully warmed up to get a good true reading
Hmm very interesting Tony, i always wondered how tube testers were calibrated, now that i have a MU-150 that i'm about to recap, i think i'll give it a go at calibrating it also. Thank's for sharing, be well.
Great stuff as usual. You imbued me to order a 8 pin plug for my TC-162 so I can calibrate it. 👍
The Sencore line of emission testers are leaders in grid leakage testing capabilities. In rare cases I found some tubes took up to 5 minutes before the grid leakage slowly moved and failed the tube, and I proved this in a working circuit. Even my B&K 747 failed to detect some of these faults, having the right equipment that is properly calibrated makes all the difference.
Tony, you make great content. I also find your voice and demeanor pleasant and soothing. It makes my day when I see a new xraytonyb video after work
cool device Tony,it may help on my BK747 grid emissions calibration,the pot is maxed out and only getting about 80% needle swing.even got a 100 meg resistor from Digikey,thanks!
My mighty mite is my favorite tester out of the three I have, including my military mutual conductance one. I've never calibrated it. Thanks for the video I'm going to do this.
I have some old sovjet/gdr digital equipment for measuring resistors like that and these instruments are surprisingly accurate too (4+ digits) for their age (tested in a lab here in town). One instrument goes up into gigaohms - only downside of these things is, they weight like a ton and are humongous.
Anyway ... nice project and well executed. Mayhaps i should check for a tube tester too - but these things are quite expensiv most of the time due to "rare/vintage/whatnot".
Best wishes from germany, Tony!
Great video. I’ll have to get mine out and calibrate it. I recall making that tool a few years ago. Hope I can find it.
That’s a great little tester. Thanks for the video
I have the TC-162 that I imagine will need some calibration. I will look into replacing the old single-turn adjustment controls with a multi-turn pot. That should make adjustments less touchy and easier to accomplish.
Hi Tony, years ago I acquired a knight kit emissions tester and damaged a bunch of tubes in my friends TV, I didn't realize what I had done until much later. I won't use an emission tester to this day.
I now have a TV7 that I really like.
Rich
Do you know what the fault was that caused damage? Wrong filament voltage applied?
@@zulumax1 I held the test button down too long, I didn't read all the directions. apparently that will tear off the coating on the cathode.
Thanks for contributing to the knowledge base of the community Tony, I always enjoy the ride along.
Any ideas were to find calibration data and schematics for other tube testers?
I have a 1969 Mercury 1200 tube tester, and an old Hickok "card-o-matic" tube tester which I have been looking for calibration data on these for years, and no luck.
I have a Mighty Mite 4. My manual doesn't say anything about calibration. Have to try it.
Shouldn’t you have zeroed out the meters at the front panel before running your calibration analysis ? From the angle i saw it looked like the pointer was past the zero , just curious if you checked that out before adjusting the meters from the inside pot ? Thanks for the cool video .
It's hard to get the camera angle right, so you can see what I see. It was dead on.
Thanks for the video Tony, nice one.
Any issues with calibrating while the meter was vertical? Assuming it normally operates when flat to the table. Curious to know, some meters get cranky when they are out of their normal plane of operation...
I have been keeping my eye out for a (reasonable!) Mighty Mite for a while now, no luck yet. I think I have to hit a few ham swap meets this year.
Cheers,
Would this be good for new EL34 & new 12ax7 tubes for an amp? Also are these worth $250.00?
I think between ? And bad should be set on 50
Loctite works for me. For those that don't like it they can have a Kleenex and a Band-aid for their boo-boo...
Works fine for non-idiots !
Why not recap while in there? That thing is at least 53 years old.
When I was an apprentice electrician my journeyman had me hold the 2 leads of a megger. It was a crank style megger and he cranked the megger and boy oh boy did I get a nice jolt!! It was kind of my initiation into the trade. lol.
In our electronics class in high school the teacher took a magneto from an old crank telephone and had everyone hold hands in a circle. The first one in line held one wire, and the last person in line held the other wire. The instructor then cranked the handle while everyone felt a pretty generous tingle. This was the demonstration of series resistance in a circuit.
@@zulumax1 LMAO!! Amazing!! You were initiated into the electronics field!!! It did teach us about electricity.
I have one different set up