The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
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Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#2In 2002, you could buy a PC motherboard with a sound section amplified by a dual-triode vacuum tube. You can still find them on eBay: http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/aopentube/
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#3In 2002, you could buy a PC motherboard with a sound section amplified by a dual-triode vacuum tube. You can still find them on eBay: http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/aopentube/
There's still a market for tube amps, although most are external for both aesthetic and practicality purposes.
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#4People who are interested in vacuum tube technology might enjoy the following youtube channel:
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#5In 2002, you could buy a PC motherboard with a sound section amplified by a dual-triode vacuum tube. You can still find them on eBay: http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/aopentube/
There's still a market for tube amps, although most are external for both aesthetic and practicality purposes.
Guitar amps too!
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#6I didn't see too many uses listed. Here is one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotron
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00422...
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#7I didn't see too many uses listed. Here is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotron https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00422...
If you search for “The Tube Guys”, the front cover of that book shows a 94 GHz, 1 MW tube used for an airborne active denial system.
Traveling Wave tubes are still widely used for SATCOM.
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#8High power RF transmitters are still a notable realm of tubes.
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#9I didn't see too many uses listed. Here is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrotron https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00422...
Other than ADS systems, and the audio and microwave ovens mentioned in the article:
- Huge-ass klystrons used to drive particle accelerators (which themselves can be thought of as the largest vacuum tubes ever made)
- High-power transmitting tubes used in radio and TV broadcasting
- TWTs are still used for some satellite communication work, both on the ground and onboard the space vehicles
- There's still no solid-state substitute for X-ray tubes. Hard to find a semiconductor with a 50,000-volt band gap
- Cesium-beam tubes used for timekeeping (as well as masers used for the same purpose, for that matter), although entire atoms are emitted in those sorts of tubes rather than just electrons
If you don't count fluorescent lamps as "vacuum tubes," those are about all the remaining applications I can think of.
Re: The Vacuum Tube’s Many Modern-Day Uses
#10The article briefly mentions magnetrons and X-ray tubes, the former of which is made in massive quantities today for consumer appliances. Other vacuum tubes in current use include the vacuum fluorescent display, the photomultiplier tube and the electron multiplier tube. I believe old school vacuum tubes also still have application in high-wattage class-C RF power amps. Vacuum tubes for audio receive a lot of lip service, but they really are botique, lunatic fringe stuff in that application. Magnetron tubes are the only practical choice for microwave ovens; in contrast, power output tubes for audio amplifiers are inferior to semiconductors in every way.