Tube VS SS voltage regulators - any advantages?

[SY]

A tube will also have more noise because its transconductance is much lower than a power transistor/MOSFET. Objectively, tube regulators are noisier, driftier, less efficient, and have higher source Z. I can argue about the superiority of tubes for audio amplification, but this is DC- some time spent looking at the rails of a regulator with music playing through the device loading it is very instructive. It certainly instructed me to run from tube regs at full speed.

[David Davenport]

Originally posted by Wavebourn


quote: [*]No heat sinks several hundred volts above ground.



Again, it is not a technical reason, nobody forces you to expowe high voltages. Insulation is cheap.

Although, it is a practical reason. Even though the transistor is insulated from the heatsink the tab will have high voltage on it. Assuming that the heatsink is mounted on the outside of the chassis to give good cooling, does anyone have a way, short of a cage, to protect the tab from being touched?

Dave

[Brian Beck]

Dave,

If you use a TO-3 style pass transistor, you can buy plastic covers to shield the high voltage can (a tiny hole allows a slender probe to enter for test, but not a finger). If the pass transistor is a TO-220 style or one of its variants, it could be placed on the inner side, or in the inner chamber, of an external heatsink to avoid contact. There are insulated-tab variants of the TO-220, but you've still got three exposed hot pins to worry about.

[Wavebourn]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Hi,

Why do I get the feeling there'll be plenty more racks in the pool.

Because it is the common practice. A new generation of engineers use computer simulators and barely touch an iron. As the result, it is easier to grab parts of schematics from libraries and put them together without thinking how to get the same result using minimal necessary set of elements drilling less holes, fighting against parasitics, transients, and other side effects. .

The same unfortunately happens with tubes when people tend to search in vintage popular magazines for kids, mass production schematics, stupid patents, instead of applying own gray substance.

[ray_moth]

It certainly instructed me to run from tube regs at full speed.

SY, you just answered every question I ever wanted to ask about tube regulation, thanks! I won't be going there again.