2010/1/28 Rex <[email protected]>: > Steve Rooke wrote: >> >> Wasn't life so much easier with valves (tubes)... > > Nostalgia?
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be! > Valves (tubes) warmer in close proximity, yes. Global warming should make > that, on average, less helpful. And we heated our houses less. > In the 60's listening to rock music, I could look at the final tubes in a > dark room and see the purple glow inside dance with the music. > Anyone else? Way, way back I was listening in the background to an old Teak amp one day when I thought that it sounded a bit distorted. Went over to look at the chassis and saw one of the valves in the output stage with it's anode glowing red! Hmmm, seems it was conducting just a little more than it was supposed to do due to a biasing component failure. A couple of minutes later and some work with a soldering iron and the sound was fine again. That chassis went on forever on that same valve. > Solid state amps just can't do that. Way cool. I never tried it with > cannabis, but probably even better. They soon go legs up if you apply too much voltage or current which valves would just shrug off. > Other than that memory, and certain trade-offs at big Rf power, I'll say I > no longer encourage the glowing bulbs for most things. They certainly still held their own in high power RF stages but I wouldn't go out of my way to build something out of them now. As for conductive surfaces for benches and the like, RS Components used to sell a static conducting matting by the square yard that you could order. It was a yellow and about 1/8" thick flexible dense rubberized material. We covered our benches and floor around our workplaces and had the press-stud fittings riveted to them so you could clip your earthing strap to it. It was very hard waring and coped well with molten solder dripping onto it. I believe I still have a sheet of it somewhere in the garage. 73 Steve -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD A man with one clock knows what time it is; A man with two clocks is never quite sure. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
