[time-nuts] Conducting Bench Top Material

Steve Rooke sar10538 at gmail.com
Thu Jan 28 12:48:54 UTC 2010


2010/1/28 Rex <rexa at sonic.net>:
> 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.



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