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...nice guy... in poland we have another interesting specimen, Aleksander Zawada, makes his own tubes...
 
I want to make tubes at home. Researching on that. But it's expensive...
i saw a guy make a DIY tube using a car light buld.
didn't look expensive, just a burner and metal part, laboratory glass.

the expensive part is the vacuum pump.
but why would you do that? it "might" work, but you also got to calculate the specs and hopefully build something that's actually usable.
 
I used to think that way too. But sometimes we do things for the achievement.
And for the learning. In 1987 about 20 of us left our employer and set up on our own. Unfettered by corporate constraints we spread our wings both in business and technology terms but also we were able to explore areas we knew nothing about. We got into high level languages (I taught myself C from a book), surface mount components, chip design, ink jet printing, automation, drug deleivery and discovery and RF to name but a few. As my old boss used to say, all learning is to be encouraged. This culminated in our development of the first independent GSM chip set and reference designs. At the time, GSM phones were only made by Nokia and Motorola so all their competitors snapped up our design. We floated that part of the company in 1999 and the proceeds of that allowed me to retire at the age of 50. Later, our automation division, which made the machines that made the chickenpox vaccine for for all kids in the USA, was sold a a nice bundle of cash.

Don't ever knock learning new things.

Cheers

Ian
 
..making a tube work - however cool that is - is not all that hard. The really, really hard thing is making a good tube.

Remember, for decades most of money invested in technology was poured that way - and all the knowledge thus gathered is now more or less lost to history and company secrecy.

IMO none of the companies still producing tubes are able to make above-guitaramp-quality - be that because of lack of knowledge, prohibited/toxic technologies or economic considerations.

..and don't get me started on the hifi-tube-business..

/Jakob E.
 
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