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    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
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Tube sale at AES

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#228
Those chinese guys are fantastic!

Some years ago I bought a couple of PCL200 and had the same problem as Wavebourn: where to find the socket...finally found PC mounted ones. Still have the PCL200's somewhere, so now I know that there are also sockets for it, brand new!

Erik
 
#230
the sockets loose their grip and become nearly useless. Has anyone had this problem?
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I have had the same Chinese 4 pin, 9 pin and octal sockets in my Simple SE and Tubelab SE amplifier boards for years and not noticed any problem. I recently purchased some 9 pin compactron sockets. I installed a pair in my spud SE amp. I purchased a bunch of 6LR8's during this tube sale feeding frenzy and proceeded to test them by running them through the spud SE board. One socket became erratic after about 20 tubes and the other made it to about 25. Perhaps the Chinese manufacturers realize that this is more insertions than the average socket will see and designed accordingly, or perhaps they just got a good deal on some melted down Toyotas and decided to save a few pennies on the steel.
 
#232
Those are probably Magnoval sockets (for .050" pins). Same pin circle as the Novar with .040" pins.
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I specifically asked for the sockets to fit the 6LR8's that I bought, but now that I look closer at the contacts they are somewhat different than the contacts in a 12 pin socket, but they could just be bigger because there is more room in a 9 pin socket.

I decided to take a fresh socket and stuff in a WE418 (Magnoval). It can be made to fit, but it doesn't act like it belongs there. It took a whole lot of force to make it go in. After I did that the 6LR8 just falls out.

The 6LR8's fit the new sockets reasonably well, the pins just lose their tension quickly. I still have the same sockets in the spud board, but I have had to tighten the pins a few times.
 
#234
Well, I just couldn't leave it alone and put in one last order - I couldn't resist 35LR6s for less than $5 apiece, as well as a few odds and ends. The big sweeps will be for making loud noises some time in the semi-distant future. I'm interested to see how the plates compare with my EL509s.
 
#235
To add to the fun, I just received a couple of lots of cheap, lightly used/unused (well, very clean) 6DQ6s from Epay. They are all in that nice squatty envelope and have big plates with big fins that would be saying to someone like George "torture me, please"...Maybe my AES package will get here tomorrow.
 
#236
big plates with big fins that would be saying to someone like George "torture me, please"...
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I hate to admit it but I bought a big box of loose sweep tubes at the Orlando hamfest last year for $5! There were 6 shiny new Sylvania 6DQ6's. They are too nice for me to "test" but I have some crusty old 12DQ6's and 17DQ6's that have already "seen the light". There are several unmarked large sweep tubes in the box that need to be investigated. There are also some really big guys called 6KD6.
 
#238
the CHERRY RED light George ?
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YES. I did not get to the "white light" seen in post #39 of this thread:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=124527&highlight=

I did test the 6DQ6's and found that one glowed while the other 5 did not at the same dissipation level. That photo is in post 42 of the previously mentioned thread.

All of those tests were done in SE. I have been experimenting with P-P mode using conventional grid drive, screen drive and cathode follower operation. I have explored the "glow regions" of several sweep tubes, but I have done my testing with lesser valued specimens from the junk box.

I did notice that the 6BQ6's that were seen glowing brightly in post 39 still work OK in triode SE, but don't seem to work well in screen driven P-P any more. I have to go to positive voltage on G1 to get them to draw any current.
 
#239
tubelab.com said:
They are too nice for me to "test" but I have some crusty old 12DQ6's and 17DQ6's that have already "seen the light". There are several unmarked large sweep tubes in the box that need to be investigated.
Click to expand...

Is it possible to run 12DQ6B's UL in a slightly modified Simple SE? Drop the B+ to around 300V. I recently received a couple of nice GE's.

Thanks,
Jeff
 
#240
My Simple SE overhaul included installation of some anode connectors, so I went to my warehouse this afternoon and pulled a crusty 6DQ6A and a crusty 6DB6B to try in it.

Right now I have some GE 6BQ6GTB in it. I have them on the low voltage tap, 200 volts on the plates, 330 ohm cathode resistor, they are running about 55 mils per tube into an 8K load.

I may pop the 6DQ6 in just to see what happens.

Win W5JAG
 
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