Picked this up cheaply years ago at an antiques store, of all places. Finally tried it out yesterday, and what do you know...it still works! Voltages as measured by DMM are pretty close to the meter reading. This will come in handy in some future projects as it has a 400V B+, C- and 6.3 and 12.6V heater supplies built in.
It has some nice tubes inside...2 Mullard 6L6GC, 1 Mullard 6X4, 2 Sylvania 0A2 and 1 Sylvania 6BH6.
Planning to recap it before I use it regularly, and also will change it over to a 3-prong power cord. Other than that the only thing I see to fix is the lamp on the AC power switch; the DC power lamps still work.
It has some nice tubes inside...2 Mullard 6L6GC, 1 Mullard 6X4, 2 Sylvania 0A2 and 1 Sylvania 6BH6.
Planning to recap it before I use it regularly, and also will change it over to a 3-prong power cord. Other than that the only thing I see to fix is the lamp on the AC power switch; the DC power lamps still work.
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Holy crap, those original Mullard 6L6s are going for $250/pair online. Maybe I'll replace them with some new issues and sell the originals...
Nostalgic! We had one of those in every one of our lab stations in high-school electronics class. They got a lot of use. 🙂
Dave.
Dave.
Great bit of kit, i use my IP-2717 all the time for prototype tube amp builds, testing CCS plate loads, testing shunt regulator boards etc. All it needed was a recap and one of the small tubes replaced that had low emission, think it was the 6BH6.
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I love how they labeled the board with capacitance and voltage ratings. Don't even need a schematic!
Try E235L it has much higher mu, and GM so should give better load response and lower noise.
I have two. One uses the 6L6s, the other uses HV Mosfets but same trafo and chassis - circuit from Art of Electronics.
Correction, there is no lamp in the AC power switch - I thought there was but it's just a shiny surface on the face of the switch. I'd be waiting forever for that to light up... ;-)
There may be no need to re-cap it unless there are some "horribleness".
The C- is very load sensitive. Not too much an issue, but just be aware.
The C- is very load sensitive. Not too much an issue, but just be aware.
I've already removed the original caps and ordered new ones. For $16 total it's not worth trying to stretch out the lifespan of 50 year old caps, IMO.
It took me all of 10 minutes to remove the old ones - if only every piece of gear was this easy to work on...
It took me all of 10 minutes to remove the old ones - if only every piece of gear was this easy to work on...
I had to buy two of these to Cobble together one that worked. I recapped both. One of the units had a B+ transformer with intermittent secondary when I bought it, thats the one I parted out. But I did recap it initially too. All I can say is that recapping did in the transformer, intermittent" went to fully open. The series 70uf's were replaced with 68uf, 20 with 22, and the 40 with 47... I suspect the new cap threw it over the edge so be careful not to oversize any of the caps from the original design! Of course my transformer secondary was bad initially too, yours sounds fine, the meter on mine would jump around when the borderline transformer was acting up.
I ordered the exact same cap sizes you did. The originals were +/- 20% so they are all within original specs.
Recap completed, new power cord added, brought it up slowly on a variac, no smoke or signs of distress!
Zero and +400V set according to the manual, all systems working perfectly for all outputs.
Good to have a solid variable power supply plus a bit of vintage flair to go with my more modern Tektronix scope and arbitrary function generator.
My favorite part is the pair of pencil-thin Rubycon 22uF, 350 caps. Amazing how the size has shrunk as the performance has increased!
Zero and +400V set according to the manual, all systems working perfectly for all outputs.
Good to have a solid variable power supply plus a bit of vintage flair to go with my more modern Tektronix scope and arbitrary function generator.
My favorite part is the pair of pencil-thin Rubycon 22uF, 350 caps. Amazing how the size has shrunk as the performance has increased!
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That's fully clockwise, it just wraps around the bottom of the dial. I suppose I could pull the knob off and make the turn a bit more symmetrical.
I have two similar Heathkits. I have seen useful to adjust the upper limit of the output voltage to 450 V. These extra 50 V are often very useful for some tests.
I just ran across one of these Cenco 79552 HV power supplies on Ebay. Never seen one before. 0-500V 100 mA with adj. -150V too. Probably tube based, judging by all the ventilation slots. Looks like it has 6.3V at 5 A too. Fairly similar to the Heathkit IP-17 etc.
$$$ though. But then so are the Heathkits on Ebay.
I also ran across an older Heathkit PS-3 on Ebay. (last pic)
$$$ though. But then so are the Heathkits on Ebay.
I also ran across an older Heathkit PS-3 on Ebay. (last pic)
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