Some may remember those things on youtube.
We all know what a dim bulb tester is and its limitations. Mainly they are good up to maybe a 200 watt audio amp but then they fail.
Turning down a variac does not lower the available current which was the id ea.
The bulb is key, low power stuff a 60 watt does it, for higher power maybe a 100 watt.
And their usefulness is very limited on tube stuff. The over head of just t he tube filaments make it so.
The scariac is a simple rheostat with a very high power handling capacity. Using that would be like being able to vary the wattage of the bulb in the DBT.
Another thing is worldwide they want rid of incandescent bulbs and those ar e crucial, partly because they are just a resistance, but also that their r esistance increases with more current. We should be able to live without th at particular feature.
With the major part of the job done by the bath in the scariac, we can use almost any bulb, halogens should be around for a while.
It beats maybe how I do it, which is to just plug it in. With tubes you act ually can, if not fired up in a longtime then look at the rectifier pates f irst for arcing. If there are any seleniums in there I would just probably disconnect them temporarily. Thing is you better shut down soon because if it has a rectifier tube and a selenium the latter is probably for output b ias.
There are also SMPSes out there that really do not like the DBT. I think th e scariac can be adjusted to suit them.
I am sure a better thing can be built to do this. Something not so awkward something maybe even a little bit safer. Something that has a drain and a s pout because the water solution will need to be changed from time to time - I think.
Think of the power handling of that thing, A tthat water, which can cool on its own just due to mass, or a while. Then it has some surface area but we can make it a little different to give it more surface area. The idea seem s very undeveloped right now.
Thoughts ? Call me crazy ? (flattery will get you nowhere)