Extend the useful life of those precious tubes: use a Tube Amplifier High-Voltage Delay

February 25 2015, 01:10

Tube life can be extended if you delay the application of high voltage until after the heaters have warmed up and current can flow. This little module does just that: depending on the setting of a jumper, it delays the high-voltage for 40 or 60 seconds after the amplifier is switched on.

It can easily be retrofitted to any amplifier because it is wired in between ground and the power transformer center tap (or between ground and the bridge in a full-wave rectifier). It needs a floating heater winding or equivalent to power it. The small PCB and the controller chip are now available online on Linearaudio.nl - Jan Didden’s website - where you can download Gerber files that should be useable by any reputed board house, as well as download the Hex file for the controller firmware.
This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2014. 

Read the full article here.
Page description
About Jan Didden
Jan Didden has written for audioXpress since the 1970s and he is the magazine’s Technical Editor. He is retired following a career with the Netherlands Air Force and NATO. He worked in logistics, air defense, and information technology. Retirement has provided... Read more

Attachment
Tube-Amplifier-High-Voltage-DelayccWeb.jpg
AX1402JanDidden.pdf
related items