Tubes are back, the penthode flashdrive

Cool. Not $125 cool, which is what the US eBay page says, but still cool.

And I'm not even steampunk.

I'm too literal minded -- the base is very Steam-punky, but it doesn't look authentically "toob" to me, which kinda turns me off.

And the glow is in the wrong place.

And yes -- I'm just being too picky. If you don't know what the f**k tubes are it's cool in an ignorant-artsy sort of way.

--

Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Oh! ...and so cheap!

On a sunny day (Mon, 07 Oct 2013 12:20:19 -0500) it happened Tim Wescott wrote in :

Not so sure, I have used tubes that glowed outside the anode area on the bottom. The orange one would do.

I have used tubes with anodes driven red too... That feature could have been added....

I could talk the anode of my SSB linear red...

Its more sort of a fun thing, old people see you plug in a tube in a laptop.... It is not like those toob audio amps that really have to work. Remeber, nothing is real, not even what yo usee on TV.

;_)

Nice. I knew there was a reason why I was saving all those old tubes.

One could probably power the 6.3v filament with the 5V from the USB socket. With a low plate voltage tube, such as a 12EC8, it might be possible to do something useful.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Den mandag den 7. oktober 2013 20.36.56 UTC+2 skrev Jeff Liebermann:

build a headphone amp with few opamps, put it in a nice wooden box a glowing tube on top and I'm sure you can put few extra zeros on the price ;)

-Lasse

You could probably talk all four legs off a donkey, as well. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

USB limits to 100mA

12EC8 heater current is 225mA @ 12.6V

100mA is minimum, if you ask for more can normally get up to 500mA from a normal ports or ports on a powered hub

USB3.0 is max 900mA i believe, and some port are "charging ports" and can deliver something like 1.5A

-Lasse

Nope. 100ma is a USB 2.0 "unit load". USB 2.0 can do 5 unit loads for a total of 500 ma per port. USB 3.0 has a 150 ma "unit load" and can do 6 unit loads for a total of 900 ma per port.

Oops. I thought it had a center tapped filament. Too bad I can't put two USB charger ports in series to get 10v.

The 8056 Nuvistor has a 6.3v filament and is speced down to 10v plate voltage. It will run on 5v plate voltage, but not very well. However, it doesn't have the steam punk "retro" look of a glass envelope.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Old tubes would make nice Christmas tree ornaments, too.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

On a sunny day (Mon, 07 Oct 2013 14:20:18 -0600) it happened hamilton wrote in :

Actually it is more like 600mA

You could perhaps somehow also run a small one transistor HV generator, and drive a EM34 cat-eye with the data, have it flashing.

I do have a PC fan that uses several hundred mA and runs of the USB, just a DC motor.

The USB channel will swith of at about 600mA.

500ma is the stated max which is supposed to be negotiated in case the port is used by other peripherals. If it is the only thing on the port, 500ma is still safe even if not fully "kosher", 600ma is not. The problem is the ports are supposed to use poly-switches for over-current but cheap boards use fuses. You got away with it on that port on that machine, but that won't (and isn't) the universal case.

On a sunny day (Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:59:35 +1000) it happened "David Eather" wrote in :

Some time ago I bought a USB reading light, 28 white LEDs. Have not measured teh current. I have never seen an USB board with a real fuse (blown). Replacable fuses are expensive (clips, holder, etc). And will get the stuff returned...

Ear rings for 'geeky' women? (or men who are 'into' jewelry.) George H.

Sometimes a tube is just a tube.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

And sometimes it has a strap-on.

The fuses aren't replaceable - you get a dead port and that is it.

On a sunny day (Wed, 09 Oct 2013 09:34:44 +1000) it happened "David Eather" wrote in :

Is that allowed in the spec?