Watching these is like watching the condensed version of the evolution of the valve. Seeing you perfect techniques and making small improvements with every one you make. It's a joy to behold.
Brilliant! Although somewhat obsolete, I still think triodes are the JUICIEST of all electronic components! You are a genius for even having the capability to do this. Please make more tubes, and more videos of you making said tubes! I enjoy your videos immensely!
The drill as a mini lathe was awesome 👌 Your style of torch will over heat if it's not turned up enough and could dammage it but you probably already figured it out or only use low flame for short times. You can get an oxy acetylene kit for cheap from harbor freight for cheap and the acetylene regulator works on a propane bottle and you can make a ton of stuff on it whether it be glassblowing or oxy acetylene welding and brazing and cutting. If you need any pointers ive done both for a long time. Awesome job on your project 👏 I subbed 👍
Very impressed by what you achieve with basic tools. I've been a fan of glasslinger's work for quite a few years, but watching your approach I'm starting to think this might even be possible for us normal people to play with. Cheers, Jake
Brilliant and well done! Looks like you crafted your own tools as well. You are quite skilled in many domains. Maybe you could build a simple regenerative radio using this tube or tubes. Great job, thanks!
I have! I built a radio in this video: th-cam.com/video/BX7Oy9S7Kdw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback In this video I built a transmitter to go with the radio and demostrate wireless transmission of speech using my homemade tubes. th-cam.com/video/C69UPkJwa1s/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback
Master, genious, all your tools made and set by yourself. Well done, feels like you were a magician, trying to save old electronics electronic knowledge and sharing it with us. Thanks, your job is priceless and I hope to have a workshop like yours one day.👍👍👍
Very cool process and narration. I watch glasslinger too, and I prefer your narration. I believe he warms the getter while pumping down to allow it to off gas. I know he doesn't actually flash the getter until the envelope is sealed. This is pretty close to magic for me, so I don't pretend to know what method is best. Keep up the great videos. 👍
Thank you! I also heat the getter up after it is sealed, I just did not catch it on film. The titanium getter is not like a normal barium getter. It does not really "flash" it is only active when heated and can be reheated multiple times.
Just discovered your channel, utterly fantastic your skill level is over the top. Did you ever work at a neon sign shop? Your tools and methods are similar to what I witnessed working as a electrician at a custom sign shop.
Another fantastic homemade tube, what a video. Would you be OK to do some videos of projects using your own homemade tubes, please! Great........!!!!!! Let's see more and the uses you put your tubes to, please....!
I have watched your videos, your brain power is amazing. I have come to a conclusion, you are not from this world, LOL. I have never seen anything like this in my life and I am pushing 70.
I have a few old Tubes in my stash of bits and pieces, two of them are a couple of old Trigon brand 6SN7GT Twin-Triode octal-base tubes, I think I used one of them in the past to make a one-tube regenerative radio that actually worked first time, that was a fun project, most of the fun was in getting all the parts together to build it and winding the coils.
Awesome work! I love seeing these projects turn out! One of these days I'll get some free time and get back into the glassworks, but for now I'll just have to enjoy your videos :P In regards to filament sag: I made a blinking lightbulb once that used a strip of titanium to create a little spring tension against the filament to take up slack as it heated. It takes a bit of practice to get a nice result, but works very well!
Thanks for the tip! I had tried using a thicker piece of tungsten in the past as a spring but it proved too brittle. I got lucky on this tube. The filament got very close to permanently shorting to the grid. It shorted intermittently at first but I heated the base leads with the induction heater and held a magnet to the top of the tube to reposition the wires.
Fantastic , I like the old style traditional spot welder, always the best. I’d like watching,if you can make, a mini X-ray tube as well as it could be done by the same technique, I assume 😌, please. Thanks
Absolutely stunning! Your labs proves the simplicity of things...!!!c Some questions: Which metal are you using for the plate? And, do you have some data? Voltages, Power etc?
Thank you! The plate is made out of nickel. My tubes generally use 5V at 1.75A for the filament. They run at 250V on the plate with 6mA plate current. They have an Anode resistance of around 40K. I bet I can get 100mW or so out of one.
I did at first, but had a few mishaps. Now I connect the high voltage supply between all the different connections. It will arc wherever it is closest and lets me know the smallest gap between any two elements.
Very great video, thank you very much! Why do you flash the getter while still being conneted to the pump? Apparently you use a rotary vane pump. Those are limited by the vapour pressure of their lubricant (generally some refined mineral oil) and thus won't get better than somewhere around 10^-3 mBar. I don't know what to expect of the getter, but I think your ultimate pressure might be better when you flash after sealing
The getter I use is not like a normal barium getter. It can be "flashed" multiple times and I do after it is sealed off as well (sorry I did not show). I find that it evolves gas the first time it is heated up so I like to first heat it when it is still on the pump. It only removes gas when heated.
The main reason for flashing the getter while the tube is still connected to the pump is to get rid of any residual gas in the tube, a tube works best when there's a vacuum inside the glass envelope because any residual gas will interfere with the flow of electrons from the heater to the plate.
I don’t understand why the four small tungsten wires at the base. Do they act as resistor or something? This said, your channel is absolutely awesome! Thanks.
My understanding is a hermetic glass to metal seal is a tricky thing to make, the metal needs a very similar coefficient of expansion to the glass in question and the glass has to stick to it. In the case of hard pyrex glass oxidized tungsten is the most approachable solution.
jdflyback, great video’s, I can’t believe you only have 2.5k subs. You got me. Please do a video going over your equipment please, this is a great skill to learn, your the only other TH-camr I found making tube besides glasslinger. I would love to build that spot welder can you make a video on that?
Very cool. i wonder though, can the bowing be prevented by making a U-bend into the filament and only contacting it on the bottom, while the top end is hooked into a spring that keeps it under tension?
Yes! Hairpin filaments are very common. many 20s tubes use this. I have been having trouble finding the right spring material to use. I have tried thicker tungsten wire but it is just too brittle. I am going to try titanium next.
Verry nice work! admire it! If you want your tubes to have perfect shape, take a wooden negative and you additional get a smooth surface. Why don't you attach the evacuationport on top? There you have a hole right from the beginning, either you can rotate the whole assembly afterwards. Did you think about winding the Heater around a paper clip? Wound Filament are way more robust and have extended lifetime. Greeting and have fun experimenting!
Great job, the finished result looks quite nice. Are you planning on continuing with directly heated and doping your filament with thorium or using an oxide cathode in the future?
I have the chemicals for oxide filaments but I think I have to improve my vacuum first. My tubes evolve gas for the first day or so and need to have the getters reflashed a few times before they are stable. I am worried that that would destroy the oxide cathode rendering the tube useless. I have been looking at some thoriated filament wire but it is about $120 a roll. I think that would be a much better option due to the ability to survive gas.
@@jdflyback you will need to go to a room temperature getter to use thoriated tungsten. If you need some evaporable getters I can send you some. As for your pumping system. It looks to be a direct drive rotary vane pump. What kind of inlet pressure are you seeing on it? Additionally I did not see if you induction heated the anode and grid structure. That will help a lot. Also if you can rig up a bake out chamber and then them bake an hour or so you will be worlds ahead. Even just getting them to 300 C will greatly reduce gas. Anything above 10X -5 mm pressure will destroy your sublimated thorium layer so an active shiny barium flash will be required. Ultimate pressure at tip off is not as critical. I can give you detailed directions if you want. Also remember with thoriated filaments you will need tank hydrogen and a flashing gas so you will need to construct a gas manifold and metering system. Oxide filaments are quite a bit easier once you have barium getters.
@@MrSupro Thank you for the info! I did not know the thoriated cathodes were that sensitive. Last time I checked I think the pump got to about 12 microns on a thermocouple gauge but I do not have a way to know if the gauge is accurate. I think the titanium brings it much lower than that after it is sealed. I did forget to heat up the plate in this video. I did after it was sealed off and the titanium seemed to handle it ok. Do I still need hydrogen if I can get the thoriated tungsten pre carburized? If so I think I will focus on getting the oxide cathodes to work. Thanks for the offer on the getters I will give it some thought.
@@jdflyback thoriated filaments are actually the hardest ones to work with. we never had any luck with the pre carburized tungsten. There is too much foreign contamination and you have to hydrogen fire to a molecularly clean tungsten then convert the tungsten to tungsten carbide. The grain structure regrowth is what facilitates the even migration of the thorium to the surface. Titanium only has bulk bettering action while depositing itself. It has near zero continuous gettering action after processing. Your hot tungsten will act as the getter and reduce its emission to that of plain tungsten very quickly. Do you have access to liquid nitrogen?
Thanks for sharing with us your work! You made me to try to build this too :)) I've got a two stage vacuum pump, glass tubes, propane torch, etc., but man - it is very hard to build them. So, many congrats for your amazing work! Question: how long lasts the tungsten filament in your tubes? I've seen in some early books on Audion De Forest managed to get 20-40h in his first prototype - I managed to got only few minutes on mine - poor vacuum I guess :)) Cheers!
Amazing! As a kid in the midwest, I tried building triodes, CRT, light bulbs. it was goofy paper towell tubes and the like 20V DC transformer nothing happened.
great and inspiring works ! Of course I'd like to follow your work, but I'm not very confident to do works involving glass-forming. Do you think it is possible to replace all the glass materials for this TRIODE tube with ACRYLIC + glue? It is ny opinion that Acrylic-Chamber can also withstand certain level of Vacuum (differential pressure) Tnx
Very nice video! I would like to build your spot welder. Have you done one on that? Also what level of vacuum did you reach and the type of vacuum pump used? Thanks!
Just a newbie question, why not do the vacuum at the top of the blown part and just close it by heat and turn with the vacuum pulled by the tube at the top? This requires blowing in the midle of the tube by cealing it first a few centimeters away and cut it open to suck at this end of course. Very impressive by the way! 👏👏👏
I still don't know how you get the seal so perfect :/ I got back to trying things out, but nothing worked so far. I got an oxygen cylinder and torch, and I can get the yellow/golden color, when using a very oxygen rich flame. But this also causes bubbling.
I was not able to consistently get the right color until I started cleaning the tungsten between torch treatments. It went from 3/10 to 8/10 seals that had the correct color, but I do not know the exact reason why it works for me. I remember you mentioned on the last video you could not get my method to work but we have different materials and equipment. Part of me thinks the issue is too thick of an oxide layer on the tungsten. I think when it is too thick it can form layers not attached to the tungsten which creates voids between the tungsten and the glass. Out of curiosity I tried to seal a bare piece of polished tungsten and the seal color was close to correct in some spots but had a few shiny areas. I think just the heat from the glass surrounding the tungsten before it was sealed created enough of an oxide coating to work in some places. I would try to very lightly heat the tungsten before sealing to try to create a thinner oxide coating.
@@jdflyback OMG I'm just back from trying something out and it worked. I really hope this is reproducable and wasn't just pure luck. I found a method using potassium nitrate to get rid of the oxide layer. I then cleaned it with a wet and dry paper towel and sealed it in with an oxygen rich flame. I'm goint to try it again tomorrow. But I'm so happy that this finally worked after month of trying things out.
Is there a video on building the capacitive welder? Curious if there is an easy way I can convert an arc welder into a capacity system by attaching an alterate cable/welder point to it as I have a small arc welder is this too much power or is it just a matter of rigging up a capacitive "cable/torch clamp etc.."
Yes! I have built radios and transmitters with them. Radio: th-cam.com/video/BX7Oy9S7Kdw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback Transmitter: th-cam.com/video/C69UPkJwa1s/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback In the transmitter video I demonstrate the wireless transmission of voice using homemade tubes in the transmitter and the receiver.
@@jdflyback What fun! I did find your videos right after I asked.. ;) How epic would it feel having a complete Ham Radio SSB transmitter / reciever setup... thats a lot of tubes though..
Great video, you make the 2nd guy in youtube making tubes. A couple questions. What are you using as a vacuum pump? Second just using tungsten wire will provide a proper seal? Thanks!
Thank you! I am cheating though, because I only showed the parts that worked. I had to remake the flare 3 times. I also made a few different envelopes before I had one that looked presentable.
Hey if you really into building tubes you should watch glasslinger videos he has been a heck of a developer for years he not only builds things but repairs a lot of old time radios etc for he puts two chemicals on his filaments and gets perfect results.
Hey man you should start a patreon. Your videos are great. I want to make a vacuum triode. Could you tell me the value of the components of your induction heater and the voltage and amps? If is a ZVS I know the circuit
I'm surprised the home brew tubes work as well as they do only using a rouging pump. I guess that the getter is doing most of the work of getting a good vacuum. You would be better off I think to invest in a diff pump or turbo so that you can get down to a really hard vacuum. While plain tungsten filaments are not that efficient, they last a lot longer than thoriated or oxide cathodes.
27:00 I liked seeing how the vacuum caused all the condensation to evaporate from inside the tube. This is also a much less stressful design (to watch, anyway), as it doesn't seem to need a bunch of finagling while you're trying to melt the stem into the tube to keep it from shorting out. I'm curious though, why do you use dual 1-turn shorted secondaries for a getter, when you could potentially get higher performance from a single 2-turn shorted secondary? This should dissipate higher wattage than the current design, and then possibly do whatever it does better, or at least more. My reasoning is that the current design is: (V^2/R)*2=Watts dissipation (heat) , when a 2-turn version would be: (2V)^2/2R=Watts... Wait a minute... I think I just solved my own problem. :P Carry on.
@@szaki95 It's made from Titanium wire, that is formed into a shorted secondary, in an air-gap transformer. The primary is the "induction heater". Since it is shorted (the ring shape, which is spotwelded together), the flowing current within the getter wire is what's causing it to glow, and do its gett'n magic. My thought was that he could get it to get even hotter by making it a shorted secondary with 2 turns of the wire, but the math I used to try and make my point ended up giving the same results for his implementation, and my proposed changes. For this change in the design to give a different result, it really would come down to which version is better impedance-matched between the primary and secondary, and that's not really all that useful in the long run, as long as the products work, and there is no immediate need for big-work/small-returns.
Is there material on the design process on the tubes, I mean are they designed to just work, or do they have intended specifications , besides being bright burner triodes.
Mostly it is just what I can get to work with the materials I have. I have however used these two books for reference. www(dot)tubebooks(dot)org/Books/Atwood/Kohl%201960%20Materials%20and%20Techniques%20for%20Electron%20Tubes.pdf archive(dot)org/details/saga-of-the-vacuum-tube
We are trying to set up an experiment in our instructional lab at Saint Mary's College to measure the photoelectric effect. Would you be interested in making a vacuum tube for us. What we need is two electrodes in a parallel plate configuration. Chris
You need an apprentice to help you do the boring and labor intensive stuff…this is just so astonishing to watch…I’ve never seen a one man electronics industry…transistors next? Even if civilization ended you could still build computers, TVs, Phones, and radios…it’s just mind blowing…
This is a thoughtful and excellent video. It is often months before an autopsy report is posted especially if there probably is no criminal blame. Recently Aaron Carter died under mysterious circumstances and I wanted to see how you were going to cover it. I approve of what you did Mr. Carter was not a happy man and his death was suspicious but until we get a coroner's report we aren't going to know how to proceed.
Finding and instantly subscribing to your channel has made my year. Love this so, so much. Than you!
Commentary was clear and to the point. For a minute there, I felt like I could build one. Very Cool and really as always, enjoyed 😉
@oddjobbob8742 im accualy gonna try to make one, but ill use a sulphur covered filament to try and pull a vacuum...
Watching these is like watching the condensed version of the evolution of the valve.
Seeing you perfect techniques and making small improvements with every one you make.
It's a joy to behold.
Love this! I'd love to see something about your bench full of mad scientist DIY tools, as well.
yea lot of it is DIY, possibly found materials which really kicks everything up a notch and makes it all that much cooler.
Brilliant! Although somewhat obsolete, I still think triodes are the JUICIEST of all electronic components! You are a genius for even having the capability to do this. Please make more tubes, and more videos of you making said tubes! I enjoy your videos immensely!
Even de Forest did not know how powerful the mighty triode.
What a pretty ( and functional ) tube. Great work!
Criminally underrated channel
The drill as a mini lathe was awesome 👌
Your style of torch will over heat if it's not turned up enough and could dammage it but you probably already figured it out or only use low flame for short times. You can get an oxy acetylene kit for cheap from harbor freight for cheap and the acetylene regulator works on a propane bottle and you can make a ton of stuff on it whether it be glassblowing or oxy acetylene welding and brazing and cutting. If you need any pointers ive done both for a long time.
Awesome job on your project 👏
I subbed 👍
Well done ! Still enjoying 12AX7 triodes every day in my stereo system. Music sounds like music when sealed in glass !
Thank you!
With a good tube amp the top end is never fatiguing even when it's a recording with way too much top.
Hi JD. Your stuff is brilliant, highly skilled and knowledgable, very well explained. Please do more! Kind regards from the UK...
Very impressed by what you achieve with basic tools. I've been a fan of glasslinger's work for quite a few years, but watching your approach I'm starting to think this might even be possible for us normal people to play with.
Cheers,
Jake
Nice one! Another generation of tube makers is rising. I wish I could experiment with that myself. Who knows, maybe I'd recreate 2A3 or 300B? :D
Brilliant and well done! Looks like you crafted your own tools as well. You are quite skilled in many domains. Maybe you could build a simple regenerative radio using this tube or tubes. Great job, thanks!
I have!
I built a radio in this video:
th-cam.com/video/BX7Oy9S7Kdw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback
In this video I built a transmitter to go with the radio and demostrate wireless transmission of speech using my homemade tubes.
th-cam.com/video/C69UPkJwa1s/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback
Master, genious, all your tools made and set by yourself. Well done, feels like you were a magician, trying to save old electronics electronic knowledge and sharing it with us. Thanks, your job is priceless and I hope to have a workshop like yours one day.👍👍👍
How old are you and how did you learn all these skills in making vacuume tube? You are brilliant! Please write back! Sincerely, Robert Bolanos
Very cool process and narration. I watch glasslinger too, and I prefer your narration. I believe he warms the getter while pumping down to allow it to off gas. I know he doesn't actually flash the getter until the envelope is sealed. This is pretty close to magic for me, so I don't pretend to know what method is best. Keep up the great videos. 👍
Thank you! I also heat the getter up after it is sealed, I just did not catch it on film. The titanium getter is not like a normal barium getter. It does not really "flash" it is only active when heated and can be reheated multiple times.
Just discovered your channel, utterly fantastic your skill level is over the top. Did you ever work at a neon sign shop? Your tools and methods are similar to what I witnessed working as a electrician at a custom sign shop.
HI, great job and skills, your channel deserves more subs!
Another fantastic homemade tube, what a video.
Would you be OK to do some videos of projects using your own homemade tubes, please!
Great........!!!!!!
Let's see more and the uses you put your tubes to, please....!
I have watched your videos, your brain power is amazing. I have come to a conclusion, you are not from this world, LOL. I have never seen anything like this in my life and I am pushing 70.
I just discovered your videos. I like the look of that tube. Pretty impressive set of hand made tools you have.
Excellent work! Mica supports and finer grid closer to filament would help greatly
Imagine having just theory AND the number of fail AND the drive to have success. Hat’s to you!
I have a few old Tubes in my stash of bits and pieces, two of them are a couple of old Trigon brand 6SN7GT Twin-Triode octal-base tubes, I think I used one of them in the past to make a one-tube regenerative radio that actually worked first time, that was a fun project, most of the fun was in getting all the parts together to build it and winding the coils.
Soon, with just a glass, a fork and a bit of copper wire, you will make a transmitter / receiver ! You are MacGyver ! 😄
I have try to make vacuum tube during one week i have watch your videos sometime for learn ,I'm student in electronic and good job guys
So awesome!!!Thanks for sharing this with us.
Hooo, another madman like me !
How many livers have you used for arrive at your first operative vacuum tube ?
Amazing adventure.....
Fantastic.
You make it look so easy; you have great skills.
Awesome work! I love seeing these projects turn out! One of these days I'll get some free time and get back into the glassworks, but for now I'll just have to enjoy your videos :P
In regards to filament sag: I made a blinking lightbulb once that used a strip of titanium to create a little spring tension against the filament to take up slack as it heated. It takes a bit of practice to get a nice result, but works very well!
Thanks for the tip! I had tried using a thicker piece of tungsten in the past as a spring but it proved too brittle. I got lucky on this tube. The filament got very close to permanently shorting to the grid. It shorted intermittently at first but I heated the base leads with the induction heater and held a magnet to the top of the tube to reposition the wires.
@@jdflyback that's a neat way to fix a short!
@@jdflyback neat idea. using a magnet...
Fantastic , I like the old style traditional spot welder, always the best.
I’d like watching,if you can make, a mini X-ray tube as well as it could be done by the same technique, I assume 😌, please.
Thanks
I would've loved to build this when I was a kid... 😀
Absolutely stunning! Your labs proves the simplicity of things...!!!c Some questions: Which metal are you using for the plate? And, do you have some data? Voltages, Power etc?
Thank you! The plate is made out of nickel. My tubes generally use 5V at 1.75A for the filament. They run at 250V on the plate with 6mA plate current. They have an Anode resistance of around 40K. I bet I can get 100mW or so out of one.
Was very fun watching your process. Did you just eyeball it to make sure plate, grid, and filament weren't touching each other?
I did at first, but had a few mishaps. Now I connect the high voltage supply between all the different connections. It will arc wherever it is closest and lets me know the smallest gap between any two elements.
looks like the fillament wire , when hot gets verry close to the grid?
Good job btw. pleas make more videoes like this ! :D
Subscribed, followed, brilliant.
Very great video, thank you very much!
Why do you flash the getter while still being conneted to the pump?
Apparently you use a rotary vane pump. Those are limited by the vapour pressure of their lubricant (generally some refined mineral oil) and thus won't get better than somewhere around 10^-3 mBar.
I don't know what to expect of the getter, but I think your ultimate pressure might be better when you flash after sealing
The getter I use is not like a normal barium getter. It can be "flashed" multiple times and I do after it is sealed off as well (sorry I did not show). I find that it evolves gas the first time it is heated up so I like to first heat it when it is still on the pump. It only removes gas when heated.
The main reason for flashing the getter while the tube is still connected to the pump is to get rid of any residual gas in the tube, a tube works best when there's a vacuum inside the glass envelope because any residual gas will interfere with the flow of electrons from the heater to the plate.
Awesome Video. Do you have a video on making your welder for the tubes.
I don’t understand why the four small tungsten wires at the base. Do they act as resistor or something?
This said, your channel is absolutely awesome!
Thanks.
As far as I know , it all he found that sealed with his Pyrex tubing
My understanding is a hermetic glass to metal seal is a tricky thing to make, the metal needs a very similar coefficient of expansion to the glass in question and the glass has to stick to it. In the case of hard pyrex glass oxidized tungsten is the most approachable solution.
Fantastic job!
Thank you!
Have you thought of using maybe one or two of these home-made Triodes to make a simple regenerative short-wave radio? would be a cool project.
jdflyback, great video’s, I can’t believe you only have 2.5k subs. You got me. Please do a video going over your equipment please, this is a great skill to learn, your the only other TH-camr I found making tube besides glasslinger. I would love to build that spot welder can you make a video on that?
Very cool. i wonder though, can the bowing be prevented by making a U-bend into the filament and only contacting it on the bottom, while the top end is hooked into a spring that keeps it under tension?
Yes! Hairpin filaments are very common. many 20s tubes use this. I have been having trouble finding the right spring material to use. I have tried thicker tungsten wire but it is just too brittle. I am going to try titanium next.
Verry nice work! admire it!
If you want your tubes to have perfect shape, take a wooden negative and you additional get a smooth surface.
Why don't you attach the evacuationport on top?
There you have a hole right from the beginning, either you can rotate the whole assembly afterwards.
Did you think about winding the Heater around a paper clip?
Wound Filament are way more robust and have extended lifetime.
Greeting and have fun experimenting!
what kind of glasses do you use
Congratulations for the video, very explanatory. What did you use to excite the getter? microwave?
Thank you for the information!
Great job, the finished result looks quite nice. Are you planning on continuing with directly heated and doping your filament with thorium or using an oxide cathode in the future?
I have the chemicals for oxide filaments but I think I have to improve my vacuum first. My tubes evolve gas for the first day or so and need to have the getters reflashed a few times before they are stable. I am worried that that would destroy the oxide cathode rendering the tube useless. I have been looking at some thoriated filament wire but it is about $120 a roll. I think that would be a much better option due to the ability to survive gas.
@@jdflyback you will need to go to a room temperature getter to use thoriated tungsten. If you need some evaporable getters I can send you some. As for your pumping system. It looks to be a direct drive rotary vane pump. What kind of inlet pressure are you seeing on it? Additionally I did not see if you induction heated the anode and grid structure. That will help a lot. Also if you can rig up a bake out chamber and then them bake an hour or so you will be worlds ahead. Even just getting them to 300 C will greatly reduce gas. Anything above 10X -5 mm pressure will destroy your sublimated thorium layer so an active shiny barium flash will be required. Ultimate pressure at tip off is not as critical. I can give you detailed directions if you want. Also remember with thoriated filaments you will need tank hydrogen and a flashing gas so you will need to construct a gas manifold and metering system. Oxide filaments are quite a bit easier once you have barium getters.
@@MrSupro Thank you for the info! I did not know the thoriated cathodes were that sensitive. Last time I checked I think the pump got to about 12 microns on a thermocouple gauge but I do not have a way to know if the gauge is accurate. I think the titanium brings it much lower than that after it is sealed. I did forget to heat up the plate in this video. I did after it was sealed off and the titanium seemed to handle it ok. Do I still need hydrogen if I can get the thoriated tungsten pre carburized? If so I think I will focus on getting the oxide cathodes to work. Thanks for the offer on the getters I will give it some thought.
@@jdflyback thoriated filaments are actually the hardest ones to work with. we never had any luck with the pre carburized tungsten. There is too much foreign contamination and you have to hydrogen fire to a molecularly clean tungsten then convert the tungsten to tungsten carbide. The grain structure regrowth is what facilitates the even migration of the thorium to the surface. Titanium only has bulk bettering action while depositing itself. It has near zero continuous gettering action after processing. Your hot tungsten will act as the getter and reduce its emission to that of plain tungsten very quickly. Do you have access to liquid nitrogen?
@@MrSupro I do have a welding shop with it nearby but I have not used it for anything before. Would I use it in some sort of cold trap?
Thanks for sharing with us your work! You made me to try to build this too :)) I've got a two stage vacuum pump, glass tubes, propane torch, etc., but man - it is very hard to build them. So, many congrats for your amazing work!
Question: how long lasts the tungsten filament in your tubes? I've seen in some early books on Audion De Forest managed to get 20-40h in his first prototype - I managed to got only few minutes on mine - poor vacuum I guess :))
Cheers!
Amazing! As a kid in the midwest, I tried building triodes, CRT, light bulbs.
it was goofy paper towell tubes and the like 20V DC transformer
nothing happened.
Not even smoke? 😁
Super! Thank you Very much!
great and inspiring works ! Of course I'd like to follow your work, but I'm not very confident to do works involving glass-forming. Do you think it is possible to replace all the glass materials for this TRIODE tube with ACRYLIC + glue? It is ny opinion that Acrylic-Chamber can also withstand certain level of Vacuum (differential pressure) Tnx
Great video !!! there was good information but missing some curial details can you guide us to some online sources. Links Please!!
Hello. Nice video. What is the vacuum pressure for your triode ?
WELL DONE.
Very nice video! I would like to build your spot welder. Have you done one on that? Also what level of vacuum did you reach and the type of vacuum pump used? Thanks!
Just a newbie question, why not do the vacuum at the top of the blown part and just close it by heat and turn with the vacuum pulled by the tube at the top? This requires blowing in the midle of the tube by cealing it first a few centimeters away and cut it open to suck at this end of course.
Very impressive by the way! 👏👏👏
Brilliant... great work
Thank you!
I still don't know how you get the seal so perfect :/ I got back to trying things out, but nothing worked so far. I got an oxygen cylinder and torch, and I can get the yellow/golden color, when using a very oxygen rich flame. But this also causes bubbling.
I was not able to consistently get the right color until I started cleaning the tungsten between torch treatments. It went from 3/10 to 8/10 seals that had the correct color, but I do not know the exact reason why it works for me. I remember you mentioned on the last video you could not get my method to work but we have different materials and equipment. Part of me thinks the issue is too thick of an oxide layer on the tungsten. I think when it is too thick it can form layers not attached to the tungsten which creates voids between the tungsten and the glass. Out of curiosity I tried to seal a bare piece of polished tungsten and the seal color was close to correct in some spots but had a few shiny areas. I think just the heat from the glass surrounding the tungsten before it was sealed created enough of an oxide coating to work in some places. I would try to very lightly heat the tungsten before sealing to try to create a thinner oxide coating.
@@jdflyback OMG I'm just back from trying something out and it worked. I really hope this is reproducable and wasn't just pure luck. I found a method using potassium nitrate to get rid of the oxide layer. I then cleaned it with a wet and dry paper towel and sealed it in with an oxygen rich flame. I'm goint to try it again tomorrow. But I'm so happy that this finally worked after month of trying things out.
Is there a video on building the capacitive welder? Curious if there is an easy way I can convert an arc welder into a capacity system by attaching an alterate cable/welder point to it as I have a small arc welder is this too much power or is it just a matter of rigging up a capacitive "cable/torch clamp etc.."
Hi,thanks for your videos, can you tell a bi about your high voltage suplly, how to use it?
Have to tried any RF through it? Very cool how you can make a worthwhile semiconductor from scratch at home..
Yes! I have built radios and transmitters with them.
Radio: th-cam.com/video/BX7Oy9S7Kdw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback
Transmitter: th-cam.com/video/C69UPkJwa1s/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=jdflyback
In the transmitter video I demonstrate the wireless transmission of voice using homemade tubes in the transmitter and the receiver.
@@jdflyback What fun! I did find your videos right after I asked.. ;)
How epic would it feel having a complete Ham Radio SSB transmitter / reciever setup... thats a lot of tubes though..
Great video, you make the 2nd guy in youtube making tubes. A couple questions. What are you using as a vacuum pump? Second just using tungsten wire will provide a proper seal? Thanks!
You are a genious.
You should try a simple radar with your cathode ray tube please.
Awesome !
Great stuff. Are these tubes for sale? I would like to try them in a preamplifier circuit.
yes, I am at jdflyback(at)gmail(dot)com
Happy New Year ! 🥂
wow, you made that look easy, but I know its not.
Thank you! I am cheating though, because I only showed the parts that worked. I had to remake the flare 3 times. I also made a few different envelopes before I had one that looked presentable.
Hey if you really into building tubes you should watch glasslinger videos he has been a heck of a developer for years he not only builds things but repairs a lot of old time radios etc for he puts two chemicals on his filaments and gets perfect results.
Thank you. Is this a power tube or preamp tube? In either case, do you know the output or mu of the triode?
Приветствую, хорошее видео. Вы не пробовали сделать конструкцию электродов, по принципу стержневых ламп. Из Сибири.
Hey man you should start a patreon. Your videos are great. I want to make a vacuum triode. Could you tell me the value of the components of your induction heater and the voltage and amps? If is a ZVS I know the circuit
Nice!
Thank you!
PERFECT!
I'm surprised the home brew tubes work as well as they do only using a rouging pump. I guess that the getter is doing most of the work of getting a good vacuum. You would be better off I think to invest in a diff pump or turbo so that you can get down to a really hard vacuum. While plain tungsten filaments are not that efficient, they last a lot longer than thoriated or oxide cathodes.
27:00 I liked seeing how the vacuum caused all the condensation to evaporate from inside the tube. This is also a much less stressful design (to watch, anyway), as it doesn't seem to need a bunch of finagling while you're trying to melt the stem into the tube to keep it from shorting out. I'm curious though, why do you use dual 1-turn shorted secondaries for a getter, when you could potentially get higher performance from a single 2-turn shorted secondary? This should dissipate higher wattage than the current design, and then possibly do whatever it does better, or at least more. My reasoning is that the current design is: (V^2/R)*2=Watts dissipation (heat) , when a 2-turn version would be: (2V)^2/2R=Watts... Wait a minute... I think I just solved my own problem. :P
Carry on.
The getter doesn't conduct electricity, it's just there to remove any leftover gas from the tube.
@@szaki95 It's made from Titanium wire, that is formed into a shorted secondary, in an air-gap transformer. The primary is the "induction heater". Since it is shorted (the ring shape, which is spotwelded together), the flowing current within the getter wire is what's causing it to glow, and do its gett'n magic. My thought was that he could get it to get even hotter by making it a shorted secondary with 2 turns of the wire, but the math I used to try and make my point ended up giving the same results for his implementation, and my proposed changes. For this change in the design to give a different result, it really would come down to which version is better impedance-matched between the primary and secondary, and that's not really all that useful in the long run, as long as the products work, and there is no immediate need for big-work/small-returns.
Is there material on the design process on the tubes, I mean are they designed to just work, or do they have intended specifications , besides being bright burner triodes.
Mostly it is just what I can get to work with the materials I have.
I have however used these two books for reference.
www(dot)tubebooks(dot)org/Books/Atwood/Kohl%201960%20Materials%20and%20Techniques%20for%20Electron%20Tubes.pdf
archive(dot)org/details/saga-of-the-vacuum-tube
Absolutely fully mind blown
This is ingenious
why don't you attach evacuation tube on top, like in a factory ones?
interesting!but why don’t use something like sodium or potassium as the getter？
Thank you! I do not have access to those metals. I should at one point transition to barium getters to be able to maintain the vacuum when cold.
Can you put the exhaust tube on the top so it can be cut short?
Is there a physics model to ensure optimal grip effectiveness?
One day you will have a 20 w per channel single ended triod amp that you made. Or maybe a 2 w one.
So, if the whole assembly fits through the unexpanded neck, why do you even need to expand out the tube?
Looks mostly. Also if the flare ends up bent the expansion lets the tube elements be a little bit crooked without touching the side.
Is this akin to the Philips/Raytheon Wire ended tubes.
Where do you buy tungensten filament ?
LIKE from Brazil...
Hi doesn't the getter need to be flashed after the tube is sealed?
Rich
So you say it amplifies?
how to make the first lamp and c is needed
Can someone explain what was built in this video?
All I see is a light bulb.
He made a triode. It's what they used before they invented transistors. Basics explained in this short video:
th-cam.com/video/nA_tgIygvNo/w-d-xo.html
We are trying to set up an experiment in our instructional lab at Saint Mary's College to measure the photoelectric effect. Would you be interested in making a vacuum tube for us. What we need is two electrodes in a parallel plate configuration. Chris
Hello, I am interested. Would you mind if I connect with you on Linkedin?
@@jdflyback Yes that would be great. You can find me as Chris Ray.
link to the tungsten wires PLEASE
Did you take lessons from Glass Slinger?
You need an apprentice to help you do the boring and labor intensive stuff…this is just so astonishing to watch…I’ve never seen a one man electronics industry…transistors next? Even if civilization ended you could still build computers, TVs, Phones, and radios…it’s just mind blowing…
👍
How to make a welder
This is a thoughtful and excellent video. It is often months before an autopsy report is posted especially if there probably is no criminal blame. Recently Aaron Carter died under mysterious circumstances and I wanted to see how you were going to cover it. I approve of what you did Mr. Carter was not a happy man and his death was suspicious but until we get a coroner's report we aren't going to know how to proceed.
Warum wurde das Glas so trüb? siehe 13:34