Anyone seen these 6L6GCs before?

[Pyre]

Anyone seen these 6L6gc's before?

I got these 6L6gc's in a bunch of nos tubes that I bought a while back. I cant say that I have seen 6l6gc's like them before and cant seem to find anything about westinghouse 6L6gc's online. They kinda look like the old coke bottle tung sol 6L6's. has any one seen these before or know anything about them?

Thanks

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

 

[astouffer]

They look russian or chinese. Maybe an order that Westinghouse had to subcontract out?

 

[Tubelab_com]

I have not seen this exact shape of glass yet, but the internals and the brown base match the Chinese Shuguang (Sino) 6L6GC's that I have been getting. They have been available in two different glass envelopes. You may have found a third. I have seen Shuguang tubes relabled as Westinghouse before. I bought some 5AR4's from a reputable seller who told me that they were Chinese. These tubes seem nearly indestructable, but don't sound as good as NOS RCA's. They are far cheaper, often $5 or less.

 

[Pyre]

I think you may be right there they look exactly like the ones in your picture. The Westinghouse label looks like it was kinda printed on half heartedly later. They sure rattle a lot when I tap them. I put them on one side of my amp and they sounded ok, quite similar to the Sovtek 6l6gc. The RCA black plates I have blow them away.

 

[Salas]

Mr. Westinghouse, the only one who endorsed Mr. Tesla, half responsible for the second industrial revolution based on AC, ending up as a fake Chinese print. Oh tempora, oh mores!

 

[Colt45]

My money is on chinese too. Probably after Westinghouse ditched their tooling, and had to fill some contracts...

 

[Geek]

$20 on Chinese with the "Westinghouse" name and boxes being a 100% forgery

 

[Pyre]

I guess they had to do something back in the day before LV handbags became so popular.

 

[Johan Potgieter]

Saw this late.

Mmmmmm.... As a 6L6 man, I hesitate between 6L6GC and 6L6GB here (Pa for ...GC = 30W, for ...GB = 23W. One of the ...GC features is a quite rigid mounting of the internal structure on pins that go right through to the base pins, not mounted on a glass tongue as here. Also the ...GC has a higher Va rating due to 1/4 circle slots cut in the mica ends between the anode mounting pins/lips and the rest to increase flash-over/leakage. I looked as best I could but did not notice such slots - also the plate is not "ribbed" to increase rigidity.

But Tubelab has a lot of experience and rated them before as nearly indestructable. I would trust that - not sure of voltage tolerance though.

Tubelab,
What about high voltages?

Regards

 

[Tubelab_com]

Enclosed is a picture of the latest version of this tube. They stuffed the same internals (minus the top getter) into an envelope that is thinner and shorter than the previous design. Maybe they saved 1 pennys worth of glass. The result is obvious. With less room and less glass surface area, the insides get hotter for a given dissipation. They just start to show color in a dark room at about 35 watts. The old Coke Bottle version showed red at 39 watts. I have tested 8 different tubes from the new version in a SimpleSE which runs 465 volts of B+. This puts about 410 volts across the tube (cathode bias and OPT loss). None of the tubes objected, but I have not done extensive testing.

 

[Tubelab_com]

The picture below shows the reason for my "nearly indestructable" statement. A few years ago Antique Electronics Supply was selling these tubes with the statement "we couldn't blow these up no matter how hard we tried." This sounded like a challenge, so I bought a pair (about $8 each). That pair wound up in someone elses amp before I had a chance to "test" their statement.

About three years ago someone asked me to retube their Fender Bandmaster. It sounded pretty bad. I replaced all the tubes and sent the Bandmaster on its way. The output tubes (which were OK) that I removed were "Ruby Tubes" Coke bottle shaped 6L6GC's, a relabled version of the Shuguang 6L6GC. These were essentially free, so I began to "test" them to find their breaking point. Any time that I had a dumb idea, or circuit design that I was unsure of, I used these tubes. I have purposely abused them just to find the limits. I have had them to the limit of my Fluke power supply (555 volts) and as seen in the picture to 44 watts (110 mA at 400 volts). Note the even glow in the plate. There are no hot spots. Many tubes will develop a red spot that will glow brightly with increased power while the rest of the plate does not glow. These don't live long when abused.

These tubes have seen many experiments in the 3 years that I have had them, and they are STILL ALIVE! The glass has darkened a bit, but they still kick. I bought 8 more from a seller on Ebay for $3 USD each, but I haven't had to use them yet.