• 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.

Yet another 12B4 line stage, or is the 12B4 better than the Grounded Grid.....

motherone said:
Since I have some 12B4's and most of the associated parts, I'll most likely be building one of these soon. The gas regulator tubes look cool enough that I'm going to have to try it with those.

For anyone interested, I found a seller on ebay who seems to be selling NOS JAN OD3's for $1.79 each:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120051220807

I'm not associated with the seller, but after poking around for these tubes, this seems like a pretty good deal.

Yes. Thanks Motherone. I picked off 4 yesterday.

Does anyone know if these can be mounted horizontally?

Best,

Paul
 
No problem, Ed.

I am just bummed because UPS ground says they will deliver the custom transformer this coming Wednesday, when my school is closed.
I was hoping to put this all together with Mark's help over the holiday weekend.
Also, give thanks to George (Tubelab.com) who was the original guy trying out the Edcor transformers in various projects.
I can't wait to put this together with that Danish volume remote control. Mark says it is the bee's knees!
Lyndon
 
Geek said:
Hi,

It's DC coupled to the next stage, so plate choke is impractical.

I needed gain and a CCS in the cathode makes gain = 1

I see what you mean... How many of what types of LEDs did you use?

Anyway, I am currently using plate chokes, and CCS in cathode, bypassed with 470uf. Can I try LEDs in cathode unbypassed? (or bypassed by 50uf as Shoog mentioned in an earlier post?) How many LEDs and which types should I use?

thanks!! :)
 
pengboon said:

I see what you mean... How many of what types of LEDs did you use?

A series of 7 parallel pairs (14 total) of generic, 3mm red LED's for 20mA current. For 30mA, use a series of 5 parallel trio's (15 total).

Here's the schematic of the one I used...


pengboon said:

Can I try LEDs in cathode unbypassed?

Sure! Just grab a bag of a zillion-for-a-buck from Ebay ;)

If you bypass them with a cap, just use a zener or a resistor, because you've practically made moot the advantage of LED's, which is to eliminate the bypass cap and its inherent distortion.
 
Geek said:


A series of 7 parallel pairs (14 total) of generic, 3mm red LED's for 20mA current. For 30mA, use a series of 5 parallel trio's (15 total).

Here's the schematic of the one I used...

Sure! Just grab a bag of a zillion-for-a-buck from Ebay ;)

If you bypass them with a cap, just use a zener or a resistor, because you've practically made moot the advantage of LED's, which is to eliminate the bypass cap and its inherent distortion.


Thanks Geek! Will try that this weekend. How do you determine how many series LEDs to use? I have 150V as B+ befoe the plate chokes and about 108V on the 12B4 plate (IIRC). Is the main advantage of LED over that of CCS that of eliminating the bypass cap yet still somewhat a constant current?

The post about bypassing with 50uf is here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=980525&highlight=#post980525
 
Hi Ryssen,

Ryssen said:

Doe´s this allso apply when use of led´s as voltage referens in a CCS?

No. But if you bypass a CCS with a cap, you ruin the PSRR. As for the effects of a CCS with a 12B4, see my post here #545.


pengboon said:
How do you determine how many series LEDs to use?

From the plate curves. Determine the voltage needed for the tube to operate at the specific point, then calculate how many LED's based on the voltage drop of the particular ones you are using. The red ones I use have a voltage drop of 1.75V each with any current above 6mA.


pengboon said:
s the main advantage of LED over that of CCS that of eliminating the bypass cap yet still somewhat a constant current?

LED's don't give constant current at all, but constant voltage with low internal resistance. The opposite of a CCS. It's like having the cathode tied to ground AC wise, but at proper bias DC wise, without a bypass cap. As long as the tube stays in class A1, no problem (the LED's won't cutoff).

Cheers!
 
Geek said:

From the plate curves. Determine the voltage needed for the tube to operate at the specific point, then calculate how many LED's based on the voltage drop of the particular ones you are using. The red ones I use have a voltage drop of 1.75V each with any current above 6mA.

LED's don't give constant current at all, but constant voltage with low internal resistance. The opposite of a CCS. It's like having the cathode tied to ground AC wise, but at proper bias DC wise, without a bypass cap. As long as the tube stays in class A1, no problem (the LED's won't cutoff).

Cheers!

Geek, thanks for your explaination, I think I understand now.

From the curves, for 30mA, and 5x1.75 negative grid voltage, I get about 90V plate-cathode. So actual plate voltage will be ~99V. So perhaps I need 6 series trio instead for my ~110V to maintain 30mA?
 
Hi Pengboon,

Your 5 stacks of LED pairs will give you roughly < 9V. That's the same thing I am doing (I idolize SY's red light, I want a mini one) on a small PCB which will replace the 317 CCS I currently have which yields approximately 9V.

However, prior experience tells me that it's not really 1.75 but more like 1.5 so I have a stack of 6. My GE 12B4 pair are close in bias fortunately.

It's cool looking when everything's lighting up. :D

But why Farnell? They're expensive for an LED. I buy mine from a local electronics store and they're at less than half in price compared to that of Farnell or RS Components.