Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum, I'm looking for up to 100 pcs of a Hydrogen Thyratron Ceramic Tube 8765.
SemperFi I believe your thread above from 2021 you said I happen to have some hydrogen ceramic thyratrons, if you still want to try that... it's JAN 8765 to be specific.
I know this is a longshot but do you still have them? Does anyone else from this forum have any of theses that they want to sell or know where I can find any?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
SemperFi I believe your thread above from 2021 you said I happen to have some hydrogen ceramic thyratrons, if you still want to try that... it's JAN 8765 to be specific.
I know this is a longshot but do you still have them? Does anyone else from this forum have any of theses that they want to sell or know where I can find any?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Over 20 years ago I wound up with a large lot of tubes. I gathered up a bunch of weird stuff that I would never use and took boxes full to several hamfests. I got some curious looks and a lot of questions from some guys that turned out to be federal agents. Once they figured out that I knew very little about hydrogen thyratons or any thyratron bigger than a 2D21, they just wanted them for destruction. It seems that even the old glass versions could be used for nasty purposes. I had them meet me at my warehouse where they looked over my immense collection of junk. After seeing that I was sorting out the usual audio and TV tubes leaving the lasty stuff in a 50 gallon drum, we settled on them just taking my drum full of oddball large glass tubes that I had no use for. The 2D21 and the 5696 can be useful for music synthesizer VCO circuits, I kept those.
Some decades ago i tried to find big hydrogen thyratrons and run into a brick wall, no chance.
The smaller ones where advertized for use in missiles, the big ones seem to have some
a bit more hushed up military application in nuclear warfare
I just wanted to try out an idea i had for building a more simple and cheaper induction heater.
For it, to be of any use, i would have needed a efficient and fast enough switch to handle a few tens of kV at some kA.
Hydrogen thyratrons seemed to be ideal for that job.
The smaller ones where advertized for use in missiles, the big ones seem to have some
a bit more hushed up military application in nuclear warfare
I just wanted to try out an idea i had for building a more simple and cheaper induction heater.
For it, to be of any use, i would have needed a efficient and fast enough switch to handle a few tens of kV at some kA.
Hydrogen thyratrons seemed to be ideal for that job.
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The spec sheet I just checked mentions use for radar and missile application. No other uses suggested. Wish I had some just to brag.
I'd say SLAC is upgrading their Linac again, and looking for cheap parts! 🤣
Going price seems to be 400 bucks: https://www.nosvacuumtubes.net/product-category/other-tubes/other-tubes-8765ku-71z/
Going price seems to be 400 bucks: https://www.nosvacuumtubes.net/product-category/other-tubes/other-tubes-8765ku-71z/
I found that listing yesterday while searching for the data sheet. When you click on the link for purchase you find that they are "out of stock." VacuumTubes.net shows a lower price, but does not quote stock levels which are likely zero.
In radar use large thyratrons are used to dump a short high energy multiple kilovolt electrical pulse into a magnetron or other similar tube which creates the large burst of RF energy that bounces off the target and is reflected back to the receiver.
If you do a Google search for "Palm Beach International Raceway" or "Palm Beach Driving Club" then select "maps" you will find a racetrack surrounded by miles of mostly uninhabited swamp land, except for the development encroaching from the east which was not present before 2000. I used to race on that track in the 1990's, but it is not relevant to this thread. Look at the neighbors surrounding that property. Many years ago, there was some research, and a lot of government funding devoted to the "Star Wars Laser Project," AKA the "Strategic Defense Initiative." Here multiple companies raced to develop lasers powerful enough to "blow holes in moving boxcars" yet portable enough to be installed in aircraft. This ran for about 10 years from the mid 80's to the mid 90's when the plug was pulled. Sometime around 1990 the "electrically pumped laser" project which was being developed at one of those places across the road from the racetrack was cancelled since the "chemically pumped laser" being developed elsewhere won the race. All of the non classified materials used in the electrical laser literally went into the dumpsters, and much of what was found in the dumpster wound up at several South Florida hamfests. It seemed that nobody wanted large teflon and oil capacitors rated for 100KV, and other associated parts, so I'm guessing that most wound up in a landfill.
Interesting. My guess would be that the tubes are intended for medical/industrial accelerators or radiation sources, not some small (or not so small) country building their own star wars laser guns. Google found this interesting article on thyratron development and uses: https://aobauer.home.xs4all.nl/Evolution of Hydrogen Thyratron.pdf
Of course I could be wrong, and the Russian military does need to replace a lot of radars... Apparently there's a sufficient number of bad actors in third countries that are willing to circumvent embargoes. Just this morning German news had a report on advanced CNC machines and the like still finding their way from Germany to Russia, mostly via Turkey. I hope A2 Global is vetting their customers carefully.
Sorry, really getting off-topic here.
To steer it back to diyaudio: what would the DIY audio or more generally electronics hobbyist application be for a high current high speed kilovolt switch? It's overkill for a Tesla coil, I assume?
Of course I could be wrong, and the Russian military does need to replace a lot of radars... Apparently there's a sufficient number of bad actors in third countries that are willing to circumvent embargoes. Just this morning German news had a report on advanced CNC machines and the like still finding their way from Germany to Russia, mostly via Turkey. I hope A2 Global is vetting their customers carefully.
Sorry, really getting off-topic here.
To steer it back to diyaudio: what would the DIY audio or more generally electronics hobbyist application be for a high current high speed kilovolt switch? It's overkill for a Tesla coil, I assume?
Gruesome, you are spot on with the upgrade happening at SLAC.
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/las...5143295/slac-lcls-ii-he-upgrade-gets-underway
However, I think we are still hoarding the 100 tubes from the original 1 km of linac to support the 200 tubes in the 2 km of accelerator that still uses them. You can probably get a good deal on a 50 kW klystron though 😉
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/las...5143295/slac-lcls-ii-he-upgrade-gets-underway
However, I think we are still hoarding the 100 tubes from the original 1 km of linac to support the 200 tubes in the 2 km of accelerator that still uses them. You can probably get a good deal on a 50 kW klystron though 😉
It's interesting that while so many things can be done nowadays by solid state devices, for the really high power high speed applications we still need to use vacuum tube-like devices, like klystrons and thyratrons, and of course the accelerators themselves, if you want to stretch 'tube-like' to the extreme.
Apparently you can make the cathodes now out of semiconductors, but as charge carrier you still need free electrons or free ions.
Coming back to thyratrons: there was another thread not so long ago by somebody who had obtained a 1920's deForest triode. Those are vacuum devices, but the original deForest invention supposedly relied on residual gas pressure, so it might have been closer to a thyratron than to a modern vacuum tube.
Apparently you can make the cathodes now out of semiconductors, but as charge carrier you still need free electrons or free ions.
Coming back to thyratrons: there was another thread not so long ago by somebody who had obtained a 1920's deForest triode. Those are vacuum devices, but the original deForest invention supposedly relied on residual gas pressure, so it might have been closer to a thyratron than to a modern vacuum tube.
Really high power means you need a device able to operate at high voltage AND high current.
Thats where tubes shine, especially when you throw in theyr ruggedness in regard to overloads, both thermally and electrically, hard to beat a watercooled solid copper anode with anything semi--conducting
Thats where tubes shine, especially when you throw in theyr ruggedness in regard to overloads, both thermally and electrically, hard to beat a watercooled solid copper anode with anything semi--conducting
The only number I recognize is the 2050. It was used in several old juke boxes for controlling the relays in the record changing mechanism. A quick Google search to make sure that my very old memories are correct (they are) revealed that some tube vendors have these marked "no longer available for export."
