Hot Russian Tubes
👄🍒🍓Klicken Sie, um zur Website mit dem Video zu gelangen.👄🍒🍓
On the heels of our post on retro-Soviet transistor teardowns and die-shots, [nikitas] wrote in to tell us about a huge thread on rare vacuum devices of all varieties: oddball cathode-ray tubes, obscure Nixies, and strange Soviet valves. We thought the other forum post was overwhelming at just over 110 pages, but how about 391 pages (and counting) of blown-glass electronics?
If you read through the decaptholon, we mentioned that a particularly enthusiastic poster, [lalka], looked to be cataloguing every Soviet oscillator circuit. It turns out that he’s also the one behind this incredible (random) compendium of everything that’s had the air sucked out of it.
We don’t know what it is about tubes, but Nixie clocks are cooler than other clocks, and VFDs are cooler than LCDs. Maybe it’s because they embody so much more obvious human effort? They’re fundamentally simpler, visible devices? Or maybe it’s just because they glow purty. Anyway, we’re drawn to them. We’ve written up hand-blowing your own vacuum tubes like a pro, and a distinctly less tech approach with aluminum foil, and everything in between.
Thanks [nikitas] for the tip! You and [lalka], keep up the good decapping work.
Posted in hardware Tagged cathode ray tube, crt, nixie, retro, thermionic valves, tubes
33 thoughts on “ Hot Russian Tubes ”
notarealemail says:
There are some really weird VFD tubes on there. Great find! “We don’t know what it is about tubes, but Nixie clocks are cooler than other clocks, and VFDs are cooler than LCDs. ” Agreed. :D For anyone who needs it… http://itools.com/tool/google-translate-web-page-translator
Martin says:
LCD’s are coller, Nixies or VFD are definitely hotter. :-)
Martin says:
RÖB says:
I think it would be really good if there were an article about how valve tech actually works. The math is amazingly simple and it still has applications in use today. Valve technology is often considered as a aspect of history. Sure, other technologies have overtaken consumer markets but some non-consumer applicators remain dominated by valves because no cost effective alternative exists.
jack laidlaw says:
1 that would be great, I have no idea how a valve works.
Kay says:
I ‘d like to say, being able to comment on Hackaday but not being able to use Wikipedia leaves me puzzled.
RÖB says:
I just had a read around wikipedia and couldn’t find anything that explains how a valve actually works in terms that an EE would expect. I had to do all the math etc ‘back in the day’ but I have forgotten most of it now. I do however still know the basics of how to get a valve working properly but I don’t remember enough to go from formulas to physical dimensions or vise versa. If there is some info that you were specifically referring to then then please leave a link.
RÖB says:
Agreed [Annie]. I didn’t want to mention magnetrons as the valve technology isn’t immediately visible and deconstructing that technology has safety hazards. I was more thinking of X-RAY technology and high powered RF transmitters.
Jonathan Wilson says:
There is an excellent video on YouTube showing a behind the scenes look at an old analog TV transmitter here in Australia and that used a fairly beefy valve as the primary amplifier for the final video output. No idea what its modern digital TV replacement is using…
Bill says:
Tubes are still king for high output needs, transistors are nice but the current requirements are cost-prohibitive and a transistor final array on the order of a megawatt would be an engineering nightmare..
Bill says:
Thermionic emission is the principle of a vacuum tube’s operation..
decap_them_all says:
The blogger should be decapped for not proofreading his glow purty
danielelectronics says:
I’m 99% sure the use of “purty” was intentional. Let’s save the decapping for the electronics.
Elliot Williams says:
I’m 99.9% sure.
DainBramage says:
Not 100% sure?
RÖB says:
f(n) static n