• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

a question for valve experts

1 last question if i may,a few years ago a valve went bang and took out a fuse and a resistor,the tech that fixed it when finished added a cap and resistor and a green wire to the circuit saying it was best practice/safer. ive always wondered what he meant or what they are doing?,can anyone tell me please?
you can see the added parts circled in red in the second photo.

vL8QhXn.jpg




johnwood3.jpg
 
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I was afraid of that, so I also asked that is there another wire.
In my practice this method would be the last choice.
Any thin wire to safety earth connection on case (near to mains input, green wire from mains safety earth to case) would be better solution.
 
As we see in the left hand upper corner of the 1st pic, the chassis is safety grounded. We might discuss on the green wire's gauge, though. What has been added is, as yet said, a soft connection from signal to chassis ground. It might be safer, though, to replace it, or put in parallel with it, a pair of antiparallel rugged diodes.

Best regards!
 
thanks for the replies, so is it necessary?
There are really 2 questions here. First, yes it is absolutely mandatory that the mains inlet connector's earth pin is connected directly to the chassis close to the connector. Without this, any live or high voltage part that accidentally touched the chassis could kill you.

The second is that it is usual to connect one point, and one point only, of the analog 0V to the chassis. In most well though out grounding schemes, this point is at the RCA input connector. Some people make the connection through a parallel resistor and capacitor combination. Spme people include a so called "ground lift" switch in series which can be helpful in some cases of ground loops.

Cheers

Ian
 
If the case is steel, the potentially induction between the safety earth point (near the mains inlet) and the screw (near the R//C) possibly generates hum.
Instead of it I would connect R//C "lower" leg with thin wire to safety earth point (not to case near the R//C).