[robo24]

It's unusually cold for May where I live. It got down to 68F overnight! It even got down to 63 for a couple hours in January.

 

[leftside]

A friend of mine is Colombian, I've been meaning to take a trip with his recommendations. Nearly went last year, but guess where we went instead? Vancouver Island

Here is a photo from the top of Lone Cone Mountain in Tofino, the most brutal "hike" I have ever done, if you can call it that, took a water taxi to the island, 2,400 ft straight up through rainforest, 6 hours round trip, but the view was worth it.

That's quite the coincidence my friend, as my wife is Colombian... and you came to visit my hometown last year...

 

[mordy]

Yes, turning down the volume won't have any effect. By having the volume control down, you are attenuating the input signal from the RCAs, which does not affect the output tubes' connection to the output. The tubes are always on, amplifying, and connected, you are just changing what goes in

Thanks, that’s what I thought. So it seems to me that you should always plug in sacrificial headphones first to make sure that everything is the way it is supposed to be.

 

[UntilThen]

Woke up to this a little while ago.

Gotta Luv Ohio Weather

Nice view ! Looks like rain but that's snow.

 

[mordy]

BTW, we had a snow squall here today but except for a little snow on the cars, nothing stuck. 36F now and windy - brrrrr.
Tomorrow it is supposed to reach into the low 60s.
But my Bendix tubes reach 168C.....well, that is around 335F. More about it later.....

 

[mordy]

More R&R (Reach and Recoil - soon you'll understand lol):
The other night I decided to roll a 12V tube. It was after midnight and the GOTL had been running for many hours. Shut off the amp, waited for the capacitors to discharge until no sound, and pulled out the 6V driver tube. Put my hand in the back of the amp to reach the voltage switch to turn it to 12V.
OUCH!!! I instinctively pulled my arm away. By mistake I had touched the Bendix power tube with the inside of my forearm! 168C left a nice impression on my arm. I ran to my refrigerator and put on two ice cubes on the 1 1/2" 1st degree burn. After waiting a while I put on Vaseline and a dressing on the wound. I'll survive - Google said to leave possible blisters alone (no blisters though).
Time for damage assessment. The tube was intact but at an angle. Straightened it out, but something was wrong. Pulled out the tube with the socket saver and realized that the guide pin of the socket saver had broken off. Couldn't get out the guide pin in the chassis socket, disconnected everything and turned the amp upside to shake out the little plastic piece. Nyet, would not come out. Tried to pry it out with a thin screwdriver; did not work. Finally put in a small needle noose pliers, extended it, and was able to get the piece out.
Marked the socket saver with a little tape arrow to indicate the location of the guide pin.
Reassembled everything, admiring the heft and build quality of the amp and turned it on. Arm is hurting. The fan was shaking terribly as if it needed a wheel alignment. Had to take off the fan where it was mounted under the shelf and inspect it. Connected it again, still shaking like crazy. Further inspection revealed that one of the eight fan blades had broken off. Goodbye fan.
Went to my box of old PC parts and found another fan - smaller, but OK. Rigged it up (using two 3" fans now) and all is well again.
So what is the lesson? Not to reach for the voltage switch when you are sleepy? Wear long sleeve shirts? (The burn wasn't that bad and it does not hurt; just a large red spot now...)
Another memorable day tube rolling.....

 

[maxpudding]

More R&R (Reach and Recoil - soon you'll understand lol):
The other night I decided to roll a 12V tube. It was after midnight and the GOTL had been running for many hours. Shut off the amp, waited for the capacitors to discharge until no sound, and pulled out the 6V driver tube. Put my hand in the back of the amp to reach the voltage switch to turn it to 12V.
OUCH!!! I instinctively pulled my arm away. By mistake I had touched the Bendix power tube with the inside of my forearm! 168C left a nice impression on my arm. I ran to my refrigerator and put on two ice cubes on the 1 1/2" 1st degree burn. After waiting a while I put on Vaseline and a dressing on the wound. I'll survive - Google said to leave possible blisters alone (no blisters though).
Time for damage assessment. The tube was intact but at an angle. Straightened it out, but something was wrong. Pulled out the tube with the socket saver and realized that the guide pin of the socket saver had broken off. Couldn't get out the guide pin in the chassis socket, disconnected everything and turned the amp upside to shake out the little plastic piece. Nyet, would not come out. Tried to pry it out with a thin screwdriver; did not work. Finally put in a small needle noose pliers, extended it, and was able to get the piece out.
Marked the socket saver with a little tape arrow to indicate the location of the guide pin.
Reassembled everything, admiring the heft and build quality of the amp and turned it on. Arm is hurting. The fan was shaking terribly as if it needed a wheel alignment. Had to take off the fan where it was mounted under the shelf and inspect it. Connected it again, still shaking like crazy. Further inspection revealed that one of the eight fan blades had broken off. Goodbye fan.
Went to my box of old PC parts and found another fan - smaller, but OK. Rigged it up (using two 3" fans now) and all is well again.
So what is the lesson? Not to reach for the voltage switch when you are sleepy? Wear long sleeve shirts? (The burn wasn't that bad and it does not hurt; just a large red spot now...)
Another memorable day tube rolling.....

ouch! Reminds me of the time when I had an incident with a hot oven. Nothing too serious.

hope you’ll feel better Mordy!

 

[mordy]

ouch! Reminds me of the time when I had an incident with a hot oven. Nothing too serious.

hope you’ll feel better Mordy!

Thanks - I just have a red warning sign on my arm now.....no pain

 

[mordy]

Tube amps aren’t for everybody. I read about a guy who loved his amp but had to sell it because his children couldn’t stay away from it, and other people complained that pet cats found the amp irresistible.

 

[2359glenn]

M

More R&R (Reach and Recoil - soon you'll understand lol):
The other night I decided to roll a 12V tube. It was after midnight and the GOTL had been running for many hours. Shut off the amp, waited for the capacitors to discharge until no sound, and pulled out the 6V driver tube. Put my hand in the back of the amp to reach the voltage switch to turn it to 12V.
OUCH!!! I instinctively pulled my arm away. By mistake I had touched the Bendix power tube with the inside of my forearm! 168C left a nice impression on my arm. I ran to my refrigerator and put on two ice cubes on the 1 1/2" 1st degree burn. After waiting a while I put on Vaseline and a dressing on the wound. I'll survive - Google said to leave possible blisters alone (no blisters though).
Time for damage assessment. The tube was intact but at an angle. Straightened it out, but something was wrong. Pulled out the tube with the socket saver and realized that the guide pin of the socket saver had broken off. Couldn't get out the guide pin in the chassis socket, disconnected everything and turned the amp upside to shake out the little plastic piece. Nyet, would not come out. Tried to pry it out with a thin screwdriver; did not work. Finally put in a small needle noose pliers, extended it, and was able to get the piece out.
Marked the socket saver with a little tape arrow to indicate the location of the guide pin.
Reassembled everything, admiring the heft and build quality of the amp and turned it on. Arm is hurting. The fan was shaking terribly as if it needed a wheel alignment. Had to take off the fan where it was mounted under the shelf and inspect it. Connected it again, still shaking like crazy. Further inspection revealed that one of the eight fan blades had broken off. Goodbye fan.
Went to my box of old PC parts and found another fan - smaller, but OK. Rigged it up (using two 3" fans now) and all is well again.
So what is the lesson? Not to reach for the voltage switch when you are sleepy? Wear long sleeve shirts? (The burn wasn't that bad and it does not hurt; just a large red spot now...)
Another memorable day tube rolling.....

Moody I have done this several times and never learned.
Mostly from a capacitor ESR meter I built 40 years ago. I have it on my bench and it uses a 117L7 tube that gets really hot.
The 117 volt heater puts off Some heat it is a rectifier and output pentode hooked as a high frequency osalator.
Use it to find bad electrolytic capacitors when trouble shooting so it is right on my bench in my work space.
Burned my arm I don’t know how many times. Built a SS one that I use at work much safer no burnes.

 

[2359glenn]

If you are the only person who can get these machines working, then I hope it is also a "cha-ching" $$'s.
[/QUOTE

Yes it is.

 

[2359glenn]

Woke up to this a little while ago.

Gotta Luv Ohio Weather

Must be global warming.
It has been in the 70s here but the heat will be on in the a couple off weeks.
Move further south heat and humidity.

 

[Celty]

Moody I have done this several times and never learned.

Ha, reminds me of every 4th of July when I was a kid. Firecrackers were cheap then, and we always had plenty to keep us busy all day. We loved tossing them individually against imaginary adversaries (sometimes with props like plastic soldiers). Inevitably every year a firecracker would surprise me and go off in my hand. Hurt like hell, but did I ever learn? Hell no, it was just the price I paid for all that fun

 

[mordy]

Here is a picture of a tube with an interesting getter construction:

The getter is very substantial, like a truss for a bridge, and the getter cup is large and dimpled - no wimpy goal post here. This is an Amperex 6DJ8 tube. Tried it with the EL3N/6080 but not a good match - did not sound especially good.
Now, I wanted to take of picture of the tube I have. It has a label on it that says Tektronix. This company is still in existence, and in the 60's and later they made among other things oscilloscopes that used a lot of tubes. Only the best tubes were purchased for their advanced equipment, and they were carefully matched. You can still sometimes find tubes for sale in matched packages from them.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, I put aside the tube before taking the picture, and now I cannot find it.... I am sure that I am the only one who misplaces tubes lol...
Problem is that my desk is v e r y messy. I know that three inches down, at around 1 o'clock, I can find what I am looking for, but this time it was not there. However, if I clean up and organize my desk (did it once or twice), I cannot find anything anymore....
I am sure that it will show up one day - I still have the empty box as proof that I have it. Oh, and I am also looking for a Hytron 6BS8 but I have no idea what happened to that one.

 

[chrisdrop]

Firstly, Glenn, I hope you are managing well with all the action in your life.

Question on the 76 tube. @Zachik's handy compatibility reference has the 76 as needing a 76 to 6SN7 adapter. I think the 76 tube is an alt base of 6P5 / predecessor to the 6P6/6C5/6J5 chain of tubes and would need a dual adapter? Is that right? The interest in 76s tubes was inspired by @leftside's post on another thread (which was initially by @gibosi on this thread).

I hope everyone is happy and well, all things considered. Lots of listening here. Last night UK basically said it has 2 more months of lockdown-like conditions with some weakening of constraints through that period. I suspect a lot more listening time here at home...