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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: tsigprofit who wrote (2280)6/20/2003 12:34:01 PM
From: Yogizuna  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 20773
 
Here is a recent post I made about my old "tube days":

They were amazing to make too.... When we would age them after pumping in some argon gas and place the high voltage coils around them, they would light up a nice deep purple! And then came the xenon gas, and they would light up like deep blue Christmas tree bulbs, eight of them on the exhaust manifold "light string".... <g> But testing for argon and xenon gas supply "leakers" with the "spark coil" was a real gas <g>, as "little lightning bolts" would dance around inside the big glass balls if they were good, and light up a scary "orangish" purple if they were bad.... Once, I forgot to turn off the voltage supply from the coils, and 220 volts went arcing through my body! I knew how to dance after that! lol It was also kind of fun to use the gas/oxygen/air torch at tip off time, but much less fun to seal the tubes on to the manifold, welding glass to glass while keeping the glass stems open so the vacuum pumps could create the proper vacuum without any leaks. But there was real pride in that job when one's tubes tested good on a regular basis, and you did such a good job they would not fire you even if you came in late half the time or called in sick a lot.... But hey, very young guys had better things to do than make tubes all the time! <big grin>
Did you see that new CD player that uses tubes in it's amplifiers in the latest Popular Mechanics? They say tubes create a much warmer sound, and I tend to agree with that.
Old Exhaust Man Yogi