Posted on Monday, 8th February 2010 by Jimmy Auw

Due to high workload on my primary job, I prefer to leave my serious listening session for a while. So if you are waiting for my Gainclone Project initial impression, perhaps you must wait a little bit longer. Sorry to say. Also my Duelund CAST Silver delayed to mid of March. It makes me also miss the Duelund sound so much. That’s also another reason to stay away from serious listening session, for a while.

I prefer to do simple pending task, like disassembly my Hickok 539B Tube Tester. This heavy tube tester really consumes my energy more than I expect.

Below is the general appearance inside the tester. Two rectifier, one is the “deadly” #83 Mercury Vapor Rectifier and the other is 5Y3GT Rectifier.

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Tags: 539B, hickok, tube tester
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Posted on Saturday, 23rd January 2010 by Jimmy Auw

The first thing that I need to do to refurbish my Hickok 539B Tube Tester is to clean up its appearance. I bought CRC QD Electronic Cleaner. This quick drying and no residue formula should be OK for my purpose. I remove all the buttons to wipe out all the dust and dirty things from the front plate.

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Tags: hickok, tube tester
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Posted on Friday, 8th January 2010 by Jimmy Auw

I manage to secure one vintage tube tester, a Hickok 539B. This is an ultimate tester, Lab grade, and one of the most wanted tester on eBay. Don’t ask how much did I pay for this. This is also a very heavy tester. I believe it’s over 10 Kgs. So please also don’t ask the shipping cost to deliver this item from other continent.

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Tags: 539B, hickok, tube tester
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Posted on Sunday, 19th April 2009 by Jimmy Auw

I dig my tube boxes and found this old tube. Not a really expensive or most wanted tube, yeah… just an old Western Electric 393A tube. It’s a Argon and Mercury Vapor filled Thyratron tube. According to the datasheet, the addition of Argon gas on the Mercury Vapor atmosphere allows the tube to start conducting at low temperature. Ok, forget those technical literature, just watch the tube in action.

I heat up the tube for a while. According to the manual, to maintain the life span, it’s recommended to heat it up first. I give around 3-4 minutes. You can see the filament is glowing inside the metal bracket on the center of the tube.

Time for action, activate the High Voltage… Voila, the sky of blue on the top of the tube. Very beautiful!!! You still can see the red filament glowing inside the blue Mercury atmosphere.

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Tags: glowing, Mercury, tube, tube tester
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Posted on Sunday, 12th April 2009 by Jimmy Auw

One factor that makes me like tube is its glow. Well, it’s hard to explain, but some tubes have a beautiful color, especially in dark room. Here is some of them.

Below is the 0A3/VR75 tube. It has red/fire color. Very bright and aggresive.

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Tags: Knight, Mercury, rectifier, tube tester, voltage regulator tube, VR tube
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Posted on Sunday, 12th April 2009 by Jimmy Auw

After previous trip to “trash bin” shop, now it’s the time to test it So I open my old Knight 600 Tube Tester and fire it up.

Picture below shows my Knight 600 testing Amperex 6BQ5/EL84 tube. Not bad! No short or what-so-ever.

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Tags: el84, knight 600, tube tester
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Posted on Monday, 29th December 2008 by Jimmy Auw

I went to my friend’s house to test my “old” Knight 600 Tube Tester. It was old, I got from eBay. I didn’t have step down transformer on hand, so I need to try it elsewhere.

It was a nice unit. Some rust on the screws, but overall all the functions were functional. The roll chart was working completely, no sign of jammed or stucked. This “simple emission tester” could check most tubes, from classic 4 pins to Octal and Nuvistor tube.

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Tags: Amplifier, Audio, tube, tube tester
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