Damper Diodes

[hacknet]

I`ve been looking around and haven`t found much on the topic.

all i see is that damper diodes have very low zero crossing noise.

on the other hand, they seem to sag the voltage the second a load is put on.

what is the great advantage of using Damper diodes especially when i cant keep the voltage constant?

 

[Fuling]

Hi

The advantages and disadvantages should be the same as for any indirectly heated tube rectifier.
What´s special about dampers is that they often can take more voltge and current than "regular" dual rectifiers.
And, of course, they are dirt cheap.

 

[hacknet]

okay.

i did a search on damper diodes and found solid state counterparts with lables "BYVXX" would these guys work?

 

[Eli Duttman]

I would STAY AWAY from SS damper diodes.

A vacuum damper diode you can look at is the 6AU4. Search AES' website (www.tubesandmore.com) for additional damper types.

SED's 6D22S is in production, but it requires a cathode cap and a Magnoval socket.

 

[hacknet]

thanks for the tip!

BTW, what is the objective in using "better" diodeS?

 

[Bas Horneman]

BTW, what is the objective in using "better" diodeS?

From the Nutshellhifi site

Matt Kamna also demonstrated a technique for zooming in on the waveform on the power-transformer secondary (about 10V/div on the scope screen). The rough appearance around the zero-crossing was very obvious with solid-state diodes. HEXFRED's gave a small improvement, but conventional tube rectifiers looked much smoother, and the TV damper diodes were by far the smoothest of all. So even in low-current preamp applications, TV damper diodes give the least noise. I know from experience in the Tektronix Spectrum Analyzer division that it's much easier to eliminate noise at the source than filter it afterward. If there was an even quieter device, I'd use that, but as far as I know, TV damper diodes are the quietest from the viewpoint of switching noise. Considering that the main B+ supply is switching five hundred volts, this is not a small consideration, since switch-noise is radiated in all directions, into the B+ supply, the interior of the chassis, and back into the power cord

http://www.nutshellhifi.com/triode1.html