• 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.

AEG rectifier

I have here from old parts an AEG Rundfunk-Gleichrichter, (broadcasting-rectifier) coded B 250 C 125 L

B should be silicium 250 the voltage, 125 the mA's i think.

It is a black aluminium tube about 11 cm long, and 27mm diameter. Wires come out of bottom like a lytic cap. It has 4 terminals, 2 yellow (AC) and a red (+) and blue (minus)

Has anyone some info about this rectifier. How does it work (silicium, or mercury??) Might use it for a rectifier in a single 6922 line amplifier.

Thanks
 
I am sure to 99% that it is Selenium. This was before the age of Germanium and Silicon in Europe, when only copper oxide (the flat aluminium cases) and Se (the colums with many disks, sometime built into a can, like yours) were used as semiconductors. I also have such old things still in my boxes....

Its performance - if you really want to compare it to "modern" diodes, and be it only a simple 1N4004, is almost - non existant.... 🙁 Very high interior resistance, high voltage drop (easily 30-40 V), just like an old rectifier tube of the 30's... That time (in the 50's) it was an improvement - they needed no heating.

And they are incredibly slow and work only up to a few hundreds Hertz - so usable only for mains rectification. They also have a huge interior capacity.

So if you want to use it, do it for historical reasons - to keep the look of a historic set, or to show the working of an old technique. From an electrical point of view, I would forget them.

Uli
 
not an audio project but im restoring an olg AEG radio.in the HV side there is a 234V/100ma transformer with a strange like the above rectifier..AEG rundfunk gleichrichter B250C75L.the rectifier is dead and i replaced with a modern one bridge.What is the volage drop of the old rectifier to add a resistor to drop the voltage?is this correct around 30-40 volts?this is a complete bridge selenium rectifier.not just a diode
 
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1N5399 Diode

  • Maximum Recurrent Peak Reverse Voltage - 1000 V.
  • Maximum Average Forward Output Current - 1.5 A.
  • Maximum Forward Voltage Drop per element at 1.0A DC - 1.1 V.
  • Typical Junction Capacitance 20 pF.
  • Package - DO-15.
  • Weight 0.38 grams.
  • Operating and Storage Temperature Range -65...+175 °C.




1N5399