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Preparation of tubes which have not been used for years is necessary to
avoid flashes inside the tube. All tubes have built in "GETTER", but,
unfortunately for us the GU-43b's & GU-78b's do not have getters in
classical meaning, and gettering functions in these tubes are performed by
hot internal surface of the anode, heated by the electrons flow, which is
forced by the applying of nominal operating voltages to heater, grids and
anode.
Power tubes with conventional getter can be simply prepared for use, in
appliying heater voltage, with small air cooling on tube to evacuate heater
calories. One day of heating by year of storage is an average for a gassy
tube, and if you are lucky to find a tube with a good vacuum, one hour of
heating per year of storage is sufficient . . .
Procedure to be applied:
Step 1 / Heater voltage
Apply heater voltage only for ~ 12 to 24 hours (more for very old tubes).
Use start-up inrush current limiting resistor during the first 15 seconds.
Calculate resistor value for ~ heater nominal current on short circuit. Eg.
for heater 12 V @ 6 Amps, resistor selected is 2.2 Ohms, 20 Watts.
Check the heater voltage, and keep it at the lowest operating voltage given
in the tube datasheet. At the end of this pre-heating period, maintain
blower running at least 2 minutes after heater voltage removal.
Apply: heater voltage, variable Ug1 voltage (0 to -150 Volts) and no HV,
nor G2 voltages (and obviously no RF). Control grid 1 measured reverse
current should be less than 50 µA @ -100 Volts.
If current is much higher than 100 µA, be careful, vacuum is poor, or there
is some other internal contamination, or grids displacement toward cathode
due to manufacturing faults, cruel mishandling by the shipping service, or
improper use by its previous owner ...
If current is higher than 500 µA, do not loose precious time with this tube.
Even with long time regeneration, it will never be safe to use, and most
probably never able to accept full rated voltages, or overloads. This tube is
good to be placed in a museum shelf ... (Except if you know an "expert" with
good experience on gassy tubes regeneration). But this tube will certainly
continue leaking and bringing you problems in use.
Schematic of hot-pot bench, heater and G1 current test.
Pictures of my UGLY hot-pot bench, heater and G1 current test.
Place the tube in the amplifier, with adequate air cooling blower running. Use
a rotary variable transformer ("VARIAC") in the primary of your HV anode
supply. Apply full heater and maximum grid 1 voltages. After this, apply
~50% of plate voltage through a serial 1000 Ohms (+/- 50%) 100 Watts
resistor, and a fast 1-2 Amp fuse. Then, apply ~70% of G2 screen grid
voltage through a serial 1000 Ohms (+/- 50%) 2 to 5 Watts resistor, and a
fast 0.05-0.1 Amp fuse.
Then, still with NO RF, slowly decrease G1 voltage, to run the tube on its
iddle bias plate current, starting from 50 mA and going next to 100-150-
200-250-300 mA, up to nominal idle current, in 15-30 minutes steps. If
there is a glitch, repeat the step or even pull one back if flashing is too
intensive, and if it stops glitching, go to the next one up. Surely, after 50%
of nominal idle bias current, lower the serial resistor value in anode, because
1000 Ohms resistor will be too hot, so you go down to 500 Ohms, then 200
Ohms, just to keep them mildly warm, and leaving forever to 25-50 Ohms
50-200W to protect the tube against internal glitches in the future. All this
will take at least 2-3 hours. When at nominal iddle current, maintain it for
2 to 12 hours, even more, if necessary, until the unwanted G1 leakage
current decrease down to the safe value (reverse current near to 0 µA. The
lower the better ...).
If tube is too gassy, it will flash many times during its conditioning process.
Every time the anode fuse will blow, and most of the times the screen fuse
will too. Fast HV fuses are expensive and not always easy to find. Cheap,
quick but still effective solution is a homebuilt fuse, made of a very thin
wire (breaks at 1-2 A), soldered between two copper holders on a few
centimetre piece of insulating material. Just remember to solder that wire
about one cm above the surface of that insulator, so during the glitch the
breaking wire will not burn it by the high temperature arc. When there is no
fuse or no time to make one, unsolder the HV wire going from PS to the
plate choke, bend it 2 cm away from its holder in HV safe direction, and
make a 2 cm jumper made of copper wire of 0.05-0.1 mm of diameter. This
simple fuse may save the tube during a strong glitch.
STRONG WARNING ! ! !
You are dealing with lethal voltages.
Be very careful during every operation, and
remember about high energy stored in power
supplies capacitors. If you are neither confident
nor experienced enough, ask someone authorised
and experienced.
Step 3b: if vacuum is good
On the amplifier, with adequate air cooling blower running, apply 100% of
heater, grid 1, plate HV and G2 screen voltages. Note: You MUST have in
the +HV line a 25 to 50 Ohms permanently installed resistor of 50-200 W,
and a temporary 200 ohm 100 W resistor to protect the tube against
internal glitches. Fast fuses shall be also placed on HV & G2 lines.
Then, still with NO RF, slowly decrease G1 voltage, to run the tube on its
iddle bias plate current. Starting from 50 mA and going up 100-150-200-
250-300 mA, up to nominal iddle current (200-300 mA for GU-43b, 400-
600 mA for GU-78b), by 10-20 minutes steps. This will take at least 1-2
hours.
Fastest and most effective conditioning of the tube is when anode is very
hot, typically when tube idle bias current reaches 50% of nominal operating
value, and higher (at full HV). Do not exceed maximum plate power
dissipation level, if you don’t want to kill the tube. When at nominal iddle
current, and time and resources permit (electricity isn’t cheap), maintain
heating of the anode for a few more hours. The longer the better...
Dominique f1frv@free.fr OR
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