Help identifying some tubes

[captainclock]

Hi Everyone, today I was given an old tube caddy loaded with old tubes (mostly NOS but there were some used ones in there as well) and the box was loaded with some early Raytheons, Westinghouse, and Motorola tubes and there were some old GE tubes in there as well as some Sylvania and Tung Sol tubes but anyways the main point of my posting here was that this tube caddy had a bunch of large "miniature" tubes that were marked as "compactrons" on the boxes and they had pins arranged in a 9 pin and 12 pin fashion and I'm not sure what these tubes are or what they would of been used for. I was assuming that they might of been used in TVs and or in Ham Radios but not sure
Any ideas as to what they would of been used for?

 

[loonze]

tv tubes

 

[captainclock]

tv tubes

I'm guessing HV cage? And Should I just toss them or is there some value in these tubes even though not many people restore vintage/antique television sets anymore?

The rest of the tubes in this tube caddy were standard receiving and audio tubes for radios and a few scarce rectifier tubes and gas Regulator tubes.

 

[cademan]

The Compactron tube is solely owned and made by General Electric only. Without stealing other brands patents, GE created the Compactron to use in their own equipment.

A compactron tube will contain 2, 3, and sometimes 4 individual tubes inside one envelope.

You can look up each tube here to see what each one does.

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/vs.html

An example of a high voltage compactron would be one like the 33GY7 tube which houses a horizontal output and damper tube in one envelope and it doesn't use the standard top cap connection to the plate like other tubes do like the 6LQ6.

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/135/6/6LQ6.pdf

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/123/3/33GY7A.pdf

 

[captainclock]

The Compactron tube is solely owned and made by General Electric only. Without stealing other brands patents, GE created the Compactron to use in their own equipment.

A compactron tube will contain 2, 3, and sometimes 4 individual tubes inside one envelope.

You can look up each tube here to see what each one does.

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/vs.html

An example of a high voltage compactron would be one like the 33GY7 tube which houses a horizontal output and damper tube in one envelope and it doesn't use the standard top cap connection to the plate like other tubes do like the 6LQ6.

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/135/6/6LQ6.pdf

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/123/3/33GY7A.pdf

OK makes sense, would also explain why only the GE tubes I have said Compactron on the boxes but not the other ones. Should I just toss these tubes or is there still a use for these tubes yet?

 

[cademan]

Like loonze mentioned, I think those are all going to be TV tubes. Any audio tubes to be looking for would be tubes like the 12AX7/12AU7, 6AQ5, 6BQ5, 6V6, 6L6, 5881, 7591, 7868, 6550, 6DJ8, 6AN8, 6U8, 6GH8 etc although the 6GH8 is also used in TV sets and seems to make a good replacement for the 7199 tube.

 

[JBL GUY]

There are those that restore vintage television sets as we used to call them.

You might check on our sister site Videokarma.

Might be some there that would be interested.

I had several thousand radio and television tubes that I gave away to various restorers of vintage radios and television sets.

Horizontal sweep tubes may be of interest to some amateur radio operators.

Some vintage equipment used these tubes as final RF power output amplifiers.

Different hobbies, different interests.

 

[nashvillebill]

Hold on, while the two Compactrons you posted are TV tubes, there are still a few Compactrons that are desirable! Don't throw them all away yet!

In the music gear world, several old Ampeg amps used compactrons. 6K11 and 6U10 for sure. There's one more that's as rare as hen's teeth that Ampeg used, I can't remember the number, my coffee hasn't kicked in.

 

[mhardy6647]

Yes, there were some audio products that used Compactrons (e.g., the EICO MX-99 MPX decoder, and some of the very late harman/kardon vacuum tube receivers and - if memory serves - some late HH Scott vacuum tube tuners, too), and there are Compactrons that can be (and have been) 'repurposed' for hifi (amplifier) uses.

Download yourself an RCA "Receiving Tube Manual" from www.tubebooks.org (andor a GE "Essential Characteristics" manual, if you prefer). The tube docs may all be found at http://www.tubebooks.org/tube_data.htm Compactrons will be found in the later editions, of course. Nuvistors, too

The "Compactron" was indeed a GE innovation - the idea was to reduce costs in the flagging days of vacuum tube consumer (TV) technology -- less tubes = less $ and less of almost everything else... but the tube types were made (or at least rebadged and marketed) by all of the big brands (well, at least by RCA)

EDIT: Here are some (somewhat randomly selected) references on using Compactrons in (modern) hifi:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=163886
http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/tubestuf/miniblk2.htm
http://www.pmillett.com/midget.htm (Pete Millett is the fellow whom we can thank for the "tubebooks" on-line archive of book scans; he's a great, great resource to the DIY community!)
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Tubes/6T9-Tube-Amp-Kit/
http://www.junkbox.com/electronics/CompactronTubesIndex.shtml

 

[cademan]

I didn't click on any of those links that mhardy posted but one compactron that comes to mind is the one in my Knight KG-50 AM/FM stereo tuner. It is used in the multiplex section. It's a 6AG11.

 

[captainclock]

OK So I guess I'll just keep these "compactron" tubes then for the time being and maybe post something on here about them being available to anyone who could use them and include the tube numbers?

 

[mhardy6647]

that'd work - you can become a subscriber to the site if you wish and then avail yourself of the "Bartertown" forum