Can I build something cool with these tubes.....?

6CU5, 12AV6, and 6AL5. My local surplus store has these for $1.49 each. Lots of them. Just wondering if there was anything cool to use these for??

:?:

JC

Anything that runs on 6 or 12 volts has potential.

On the heaters that is! :grin:

Hold on, checking.....

6AL5- maybe as the rectifier in an old tube limiter, that number sounds familiar, like the old Gates or RCA high vacuum rectifier with low voltage drop. Half wave only, hmmmmm They go for 3 bucks new at Antique, so....

6CU5 goes for 2 dollars new in the box at Antique, so....

12AV6, 4 bucks at Antique, one of those dual purpose tubes,

so nothing spectacular there, but keep looking.

Look for the miniatutre Western Electric stuff.

6AL5 is a dual diode, six-volt heater. It can be used as a FULLWAVE rectifier or in other configurations since separate cathode connections are provided. It's often used as a signal detector, signal rectifier and can even be used as a low-current power rectifier. It's commonly found as a control voltage rectifier in automatic gain control systems (one of many examples is the Altec 43X-series of compressors). It wouldn't hurt to buy a few to keep on hand, at that price.

6CU5 is a miniature beam power tube, six-volt heater. It can produce a couple of watts into a 2500 ohm load. Possible uses: headphone amp, line amp, lo-watt guitar amp.

12AV6 is the 12-volt heater version of the more common 6AV6. The 6AV6 is a high-mu triode that's essentially equivalent to one side of a 12AX7. It also includes a couple of signal rectifier diodes, but those are usually ignored (shorted to ground) except in radio receiver applications.

Thanks, guys. Excellent info!

JC