oldtimers tube question?

[pucho812]

o.k. this might be trvial but after sifting through some boxes of NOS RCA tubes at the local electronics store I have to ask. why the hell was it decided that in the U.S. we would label our tubes with different system then in europe. it's the same tube. is this just a metric VS non metric type situation or what?

 

[Mbira]

The question is...why did they do it different than us!?!

 

[gyraf]

..we did it first.. :grin:

 

[pucho812]

maybe I should have ranted into a forum like the brewery but seriously guys why the difference? Why the 2 standards of names? it's just just 2X many numbers I have to remember. which speaking of NOS tubes I just scored some good ones on the cheap. Some RCA, Amperex, phillips, and raytheon NOS. there were some telefunken's tubes in the piles but the teles were ECC85. I never heard of those and the TDSL(tube data sheet locator) had no info on those.

 

[amorris]

they are different so you dont buy them from europe. if they could, different companies would name them different, oh wait they do!!

 

[skipwave]

I recall a mention of TV manufacturers naming the same tube differently to maximize their share of the re-tubing market.

Believe me, if Groove Tubes could profit from changing the names of tubes (and not just the labels) they certainly would. :razz:

One thing bothers me, the number prefixes, 12, 6, 5, etc. are very useful. Does the Euro naming convention have some similar indicator? Is "ECC" only used for the 12.6/6.3V heated tubes? Why are some of them named like E180CC?

These are pesky little questions that I never wanted to clutter up another thread with, but they seem totally appropriate in this one. :green:

 

[pucho812]

[quote author="skipwave"]
These are pesky little questions that I never wanted to clutter up another thread with, but they seem totally appropriate in this one. :green:[/quote]

exactly. :thumb: So why not just call it an 12AX7 or ecc83 by why both. fook call it a uranium PQ36 space modulator for all I care but is there a need for different names in different parts of the world?

 

[alk509]

[quote author="skipwave"]One thing bothers me, the number prefixes, 12, 6, 5, etc. are very useful. Does the Euro naming convention have some similar indicator?[/quote]

Yes. Kinda... The first letter means a different heater rating. Google it up, you should be able to find a table explaining everything better than I can.

Peace,
Al.

 

[gyraf]

..the european system describes the heater, the base, and the internal structure/type of tube..

 

[skipwave]

Of course, how could I have been too lazy to google this before? :?

European tube naming

The european tube naming, like ECC81, contains information about the type of tube, filament voltage etc.
First letter:
A filament voltage 4V AC
B filament current 180mA DC
C filament current 200mA DC or AC
D filament voltage 1,2V - 1.4V DC
E filament voltage 6.3V AC
F filament voltage 13V DC
G filament voltage 5V AC
H filament voltage 4V DC
I filament voltage 20V DC or AC
K filament voltage 2V DC
P filament current 300mA DC or AC
U filament current 100mA DC or AC
V filament current 50mA DC or AC
X filament current 600mA DC or AC
Y filament current 450mA DC or AC


Second and subsequent letters before number:
A diode
B double diode
C triode (not output)
D output triode
E tetrode
F pentode
H heksode (or heptode)
K octode
L output pentode (or tetrode)
M tune indicator tube
Q enneode
W gas-filled half-wave rectifier
X gas-filled full-wave rectifier
Y high-voltage half-wave rectifier
Z high-voltage full-wave rectifier


Number after letters indicates base type by a certain number range.

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[pucho812]

hmmm ecc85 is a double triode time to head back and get those tele's

 

[Adadan]

ECC85 is the European type number for 6AQ8, which IIRC is a bit similar to 12AT7. I think intended for RF, but I've seen a few in audio amplifiers. . .

 

[mcs]

[quote author="pucho812"]but the teles were ECC85. I never heard of those [/quote]
Does that mean you have never owned a tube radio with FM? The ECC85 or 6AQ8 is used in just about every FM tuner (the European ones at least). Sansui used them for audio as well.

They are getting expensive, as they are out of production - and you have to replace them regularly in the tuners...

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen

 

[mcs]

[quote author="skipwave"]
G filament voltage 5V AC[/quote]
Common error, but it's not true.

G means, according to Philips: "miscellaneous; parallel supply"

I have only seen the G code on rectifiers, but not all of them have 5V heaters.

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen

 

[pucho812]

[quote author="mcs"][quote author="pucho812"]but the teles were ECC85. I never heard of those [/quote]
Does that mean you have never owned a tube radio with FM? The ECC85 or 6AQ8 is used in just about every FM tuner (the European ones at least). Sansui used them for audio as well.

They are getting expensive, as they are out of production - and you have to replace them regularly in the tuners...

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen[/quote]
No I havn't... :sad:

 

[PRR]

> you have never owned a tube radio with FM? The ECC85 or 6AQ8 is used in just about every FM tuner

Lots of FM toobe radios; none with ECC-anything, and I doubt any 6AQ8. AFAICT, this tube is a Euro invention.

12AT7 was king of low-cost FM tuners. In part because it fit series-strings. It is similar to 6AQ8, maybe not so good.

TV tuner tubes had to be a little better, and there was more leeway in a TV's budget. 6BQ7 is the original king. 6ES8 was top-of-line. But there were dozens of TV tuner tubes with in-between performance. Too many to be a cost/performance tradeoff. Probably too many to be explained by different designer's different opinions on pin-out (which is critical). I'm sure half of them were "different" just so the TV set company could corner the re-tube market.

> it's the same tube.

Most tubes are not the same across the sea. The history of tubes is the history of tube patents. In the beginning, one guy had a patent on the diode and another guy had a patent on the grid.... you could not build a triode without licensing both patents. And they didn't let that happen. Loooong patent fight. RCA's original purpose was just to collect royalties for both patents until the courts settled the patent fight. When that case's end was in sight, RCA and Philips and everybody else started patenting everything under the sun. Power Pentode. Beam Power Tetrode. They are really the same thing, the electrons don't know the difference, but distinct patents and distinct tube types.

Even inside the US, you could buy tubes licensed for radio OR for public address. It was all about collecting the patent money. And while there were similar patent fights in all developed countries, the details of each fight only applied in that country. So tube production and sales were not international.

The early US type numbers were some letters and a number to indicate the maker, and 2 digits assigned in sequence as each new tube was introduced. Out of the first few dozen, only about 4 got popular, so they were cloned by all the other makers. Instead of saying 201 (Cunningham), we learned to say '01 (same tube, any maker). We got to about '76 and '80 then realized we would run out of 2-digit numbers, and 3 digits could be confused with the maker-type 3-digit codes. By this time EIA or some such was coordinating type numbers. We switched to heater voltage, random letter(s), number of elements. While some say the letters were assigned sequentially, clearly they were not, and surely a Big Company could put in a request and get their cherished letters. Some letters make some sense: 6SC7 is a 6C7 without a grid cap. The "number of elements" may have made sense before cathodes and dual-tubes, but became useless. Why 12AT7 but 6DJ8, both twin-triodes?

The US tube industry was very local. Once the patents were brokered, lots of people started making tubes. And, like Standard Oil or deBeers, wise/greedy men saw the advantage of ending the price-wars among small marginal producers. GE and Westinghouse acquired many tube makers. RCA wanted that racket too. But an awful lot of the market was an "outsider" on the West Coast. Cunningham sold most tubes west of Denver. Sarnoff had to mortgage his soul to get Cunningham's slice of the pie. In that cut-throat climate, Mullard et al had no chance to get a foot in the US door.

Also: a major concern as we went into WWI was the fact that most radio patents and production were in Europe which became a war zone. Marconi's position in the war was very interesting, but unclear. In self-defense, the US Government seized all Marconi's assets in the US, and set up unlicensed radio rigs. It turned out that the massive Alexanderson Alternator at New Brunswick NJ was critical to managing US operations in europe. But the seizure left bad feelings on both sides.

And the government was a major tube buyer. Europe went nuts in 1917 and again in 1939, with an uncertain break between: the US government was not keen on buying and relying on supplies that were only made in Europe. And if we had US sources, why import anything? (I wonder if the French, Germans, and Brits had similar feelings and policies.)

So through the 1930s, US tubes and Euro tubes were very different worlds. A few ideas crossed the seas (often disguised to avoid patents) but the tube-type numbering organizations didn't talk to each other at all. I don't think Europe was one number-system: there seem to be German and French and English systems till well after WWII. It didn't matter. Tubes didn't cross the ocean. Why would Philips ship tubes to the US, when Cunningham/RCA and KenRad/GE and others were making tube here? And vice versa. Even the low shipping cost of tubes didn't open up transatlantic markets. And when a tube did cross the seas, like EL34 and EL84, it was rebranded with an EIA number like 6CA7 or 6BQ7 and soon produced in Kentucky or Los Angeles.

Might as well ask why we call Belgian potatoes "french fries".

 

[Consul]

[quote author="PRR"]Might as well ask why we call Belgian potatoes "french fries".[/quote]

Except that has a real answer. :green:

The term "French fries" is simply a shortened form of "French-fried potatoes," referring to the cooking method, and not the country of origin.

Sorry, I can't help but jump into cooking discussions!

 

[pstamler]

What PRR said. I'd like to add something that will be known to old farts such as myself, which is that in earlier years, and pretty much up through the mid-1960s, different countries were really different from one another. What we have now is something of a worldwide culture with regional variations, but back then things in France and England and Italy and Czechoslovakia were really different from one another, and even more different from here. We're used to international standards and multinationals and lots of product being shipped between countries and being more-or-less interchangeable, but it wasn't so when I was growing up. Heck, there wasn't an EU either, just the prehistoric European Common Market.

These days you go to a vilage in England, and Burger King is there. Not then. Then it was Jolyons, which wasn't anywhere except in England. And each region of England had different electrical plugs (perhaps they still do?)

Anyway, given the radically different cultures on the two sides of the Atlantic, and few products flowing back and forth (I think you couldn't even get Guinness here to speak of until the 1960s), it's no surprise tubes were marked differently. And the Eastern Bloc was a whole 'nother ballgame.

Peace,
Paul

 

[mcs]

[quote author="PRR"]Lots of FM toobe radios; none with ECC-anything, and I doubt any 6AQ8. AFAICT, this tube is a Euro invention. [/quote]
It may be a Euro invention, but the only two US tube "radios" I have do have the ECC85 in the tuner... They are a Fisher 800B and a Dynaco FM3X BTW.

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen

 

[CJ]

http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_6aq8.html

Note usage page.

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0255.htm

Tube Lore says Sylvania. So take your pick.