an interesting video if you haven't seen it ....................
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVZ8Pg3poo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVZ8Pg3poo
Making of vacuum tubes
- Thread starter twich54
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Victor
Well-known member
Thanks for that , Dave 
It really is an art.
The biggest ones remind me of the "Genesis" device in Start Trek II "The Wrath of Khan"
My first experience of tubes was (as a teenager still at school) servicing one of my dad's old radiograms in the late 60s.
The next time was in the workplace (early 70s), messing with numicator ("nixie") tubes. Not long after I was experimenting with new LED multi-digit DIL bubble packs for our "International Series" of industrial electronics modules. These were tiny, little more than 1" long! Seemed like the future had finally arrived! ;^)
Still love Nixies (and all other valves) to this day....
It really is an art.
The biggest ones remind me of the "Genesis" device in Start Trek II "The Wrath of Khan"
My first experience of tubes was (as a teenager still at school) servicing one of my dad's old radiograms in the late 60s.
The next time was in the workplace (early 70s), messing with numicator ("nixie") tubes. Not long after I was experimenting with new LED multi-digit DIL bubble packs for our "International Series" of industrial electronics modules. These were tiny, little more than 1" long! Seemed like the future had finally arrived! ;^)
Still love Nixies (and all other valves) to this day....
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amey01
Well-known member
Very cool Dave - but it must be asked - is all that esoterica actually make a better valve than a factory-made one?
I'm guessing it does, for sure it's packaged better ! FWIW, remember, not all tubes are in fact 'valves'. A tube must have at least one 'grid' (triode for example) to be considered a 'valve', thus a diode is technically not a valve.
amey01
Well-known member
Not all of them are tubes either.......eg. 102-F, Nuvistor, 8423.....
Victor
Well-known member
Remember many years ago, during the "Cold War", a Russian jet fighter was grounded in "the West" due to a fault. It was the Russians state-of-the-art fighter at the time.
During its enforced stay they(we) managed to take a peek at the technology inside and discovered to “our” dismay it was full of thermionic valves!
The Russians weren’t so daft though. Valves are naturally radiation-hardened i.e. immune to the effects of an EMP so in the event of nuclear conflict their jets would still be flying - as will Dave's hifi!!
During its enforced stay they(we) managed to take a peek at the technology inside and discovered to “our” dismay it was full of thermionic valves!
The Russians weren’t so daft though. Valves are naturally radiation-hardened i.e. immune to the effects of an EMP so in the event of nuclear conflict their jets would still be flying - as will Dave's hifi!!
LOL Victor, I suspect the only flying then would be my butt off this planet.
I remember a friend of mine telling me that 'tubes' had no use anymore in our world, that was when I reminded him how much he relied on his microwave ........... he had no clue that a tube was the driving force behind it's existence
I remember a friend of mine telling me that 'tubes' had no use anymore in our world, that was when I reminded him how much he relied on his microwave ........... he had no clue that a tube was the driving force behind it's existence
Great video Dave, I had never seen that before.
Bernard
Well-known member
Adam's mention of nuvisters took me back to the time when I had a Contrad-Johnson Premier 6 phono pre-preamp. It used nuvisters, which are very microphonic, so the board on which they were mounted was "floated" by the use of elastic bands.
