Tube Tester Recommendations

audiocr381ve

I'm in the market for a tube tester/analyzer. I'd like to buy one that will give me the necessary information needed to sell a tube(s) on eBay. Nothing more or less. I'd like to spend the least amount of money possible too so nothing fancy. Used is absolutely fine. A make & model would be great and a link would be much appreciated. Thanks gents!

heiney9

Used is about all you will have to choose from. I know Orange makes a tube checker, but it's very limited in it's scope and I wouldn't recommend it you are selling tubes. It's more for checking guitar amp tubes, not testing them. You get a simple pass/fail.

Not only do you have to find one, it needs to be set-up and calibrated properly in order to get accurate consistent readings. Plus because of age it should have been rebuilt by now so any documentation from the seller is a must.

I thought about getting one for a minute, then I realized finding a good one, that has documentation and has been recently calibrated and rebuilt and functioning properly was going to set me back about $500 plus, I passed.

Where/how are you sourcing so many tubes to be able to sell on Ebay and offset the cost of a good reliable tube tester?

The best tube tester going is the Amplitrex AT-1000.

http://amplitrex.com/at1000.html

I would ask Snow or CNH or maybe even George Daniels.

Good luck

H9

pitdogg2

I too was in that boat until I came to grip with reality. I would never make my money back with the limited amount of tube I might of sold.

mhardy6647

If you want to be able to check tube performance under load (e.g., for matching pairs of output tubes) you need a restored and calibrated transconductance-type tube tester, such as a Hickok TV-7. These are not inexpensive; you get what you pay for.

http://padgett.performanceresearch.us/tester/militaryh.htm

There are folks who specialize in the restoration and proper calibration of testers like these.

SCompRacer

Check out Brent Jesse. Reasonable prices and he calibrates them before sale. He also sells calibration tubes so you can check accuracy now and then. He has a Mercury I would jump on if I didn't have a nice Hickok 6000. Hickok 539's are great as they have two power supplies versus one. You get more accurate repeatable readings than the single power supply testers. Hickok also supplied the military with testers.

http://www.audiotubes.com/tubetest.htm

You can check out BAMA site for free downloads. If you have a tester it's good to have calibration data. You can do voltage checks to see the health of your tester. Some adjustments are pots, some use adjustable resistors. Don't load up pots with contact cleaner. Most reputable calibrations include pot disassembly and cleaning at an increased charge if needed. They will also replace caps and resistors. Good example is the double shunt pot used on Hickok 600/6000 testers that selects correct meter scale range. The top pot is soldered to the bottom pot for alignment. It must be reassembled properly after cleaning.

doctor r

I also vote for a transconductance measuring tester. Emmision testers (the other predominant type on the market) are not what you want or need. Hickok will be your best choice. There are some Hickoks that are labeled as Western Electrics also on the used market. I love my military Hickok Cardmatic USM-118. Plug in the card specific for the tube type and all parameters are automatically set.

heiney9

Listen to these three guys above as they have actual experience with said testers.

H9

Polkie2009

Thanks for the heads up guys, I'll definitely check out the audiotubes.com site.

SCompRacer

Here is the BAMA (Boat Anchor Manual Archive) page for Hickok.

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/hickok/

I've never searched for other brand tester documents there. I did find a Hickok calibration procedure for the 6000 signed by a Hickok employee which some folks post excerpts from, but not the entire thing. You need the entire step by step to ensure accurate results when checking or calibrating a tester.

You'll also need an updated tube tester chart. Many old charts don't list 6922 or 7308, or a 6H30 tube. Thouroughly investigate before taking some obscure forum posted data to test a tube.

The hickok/6000data/ posted at BAMA includes 6922/7308 tubes and appears to be a Hickok publication.

Are you going to sell tubes on ebay as a sideline or just occasional? I'd think you'd want a really good tester if sideline. Good isn't cheap though. Most sellers disclose their testers, and those who know testers will automatically negatively bias the results of the less expensive testers.

skrol

My dad still has a HickoK (6000 I believe). Ever wonder what happened to all those tube testers that you used to see in drug stores?

SCompRacer

skrol wrote: »

Ever wonder what happened to all those tube testers that you used to see in drug stores?

I used to have one at the old house. A Mercury. We were selling the house and went through our things. It survived the first sort, but the house sold 4 days after it was listed and it along with a lot of other stuff didn't make the second sort.... It was just a good bad tester.

The 6000 is a nice tester. Here is the page to download the 6000 calibration data if you are interested. It is a scan of an old type written procedure signed by the manager of the Hickok parts/service department. I am fairly sure one step is missing at the end of step 7 (turn bias back to zero from 22). To get the voltage listed in step 8 (135v +- 2v), I had to turn the bias back to zero, not leave it at 22 as indicated in step 7 to measure bias voltage.

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/hickok/6000/

mhardy6647

The drug store tube testers turn up on eBAY and at fleamarkets, garage sales, and "antique" (junk) shops regularly.

They are very simple devices that check filament continuity* and maybe (???) cathode emission. They were also marketing devices, designed to sell tubes for the stores that had them ensconced for customers' use! In other words, other than being ironically cool pieces of decor for a certain type of hifi grotto, they're pretty much useless.
_____

* In the heyday of cheap consumer vacuum tube electronics, to save weight and cost, it wasn't uncommon for radios and even TVs to have power supplies that had no power transformer. The "All American 5" AM radio is a seminal example; every American home had one - or more - often in the kitchen. These sets had the filaments of their tubes in series like old-time Christmas-tree lights. If one tube 'burned out', the whole string would go dark, and the hapless owner (to save a service call) might then pull out all the tubes, put them in a brown paper bag (a critical part of the process) and traipse to the drug store, Radio Shack, etc. to find the culprit using the big, free tester, and purchase a replacement tube to save the day.

SCompRacer

mhardy6647

Yeah, those :- )

george daniel

Yep,, get yourself a Wild Bill!!

voltz

Why does that picture of that Tube tester make everyone around here feel so old?

MrBuhl

LOL my grandfather had one in his garage (as in, service station - remember those LOL!) I wish I had known then what I know now, but that's true of so many things! I'm sure the tester along with all the tubes just got trashed along the way somewhere!