Torren61
Well-Known Member
I spoke with a guy at the local recycling center (dump). This is the guy who mans the electronic station where you bring your old electronic stuff. I asked him if they ever run across stuff with vacuum tubes and he said they did. I asked him to pull all of the tubes and call me from time to time and I'll come check them out. I'll sort through them and pull out the ones i want and then I'll test them on my Orange tester and buy the ones that test good and return the ones that didn't.
Yesterday was the first run of tubes. I had to sort through a whole lot of them. Some had the classic white spots indicating they were bad. There were a LOT of them from old TVs. Some looked the right size as 12_7s but turned out to be stuff like 5879s and some looked like EF86s but were EF183s. Some looked like EL84s but were not. Some that were the right size as 12A_7s were not identifiable. But, I found an old RCA 6V6GT, a 5Y3, a 12AT7 and an EL84 made in Gt. Britain.
I tested the unknown 12A_7 sized ones first and all of them tested "fail" right away. I went through AX, AT, AY but they either weren't 12A_7s or weren't any good. I couldn't test the rectifier tube so I put it in the maybe box. The 6V6GT failed its test. The 12AT7 tested good and the British EL84 tested good. It was dirty and when I cleaned it, all of the paint came off too.
I went back today and returned the bad tubes and gave him $30 for the good ones.
So, go check with your recycle person and start a tube relationship with them. Also, make sure they let you know if they get in any electronics that might have transformers or caps and resistors you could pull from stuff that had guitar amp power tubes in it.
Yesterday was the first run of tubes. I had to sort through a whole lot of them. Some had the classic white spots indicating they were bad. There were a LOT of them from old TVs. Some looked the right size as 12_7s but turned out to be stuff like 5879s and some looked like EF86s but were EF183s. Some looked like EL84s but were not. Some that were the right size as 12A_7s were not identifiable. But, I found an old RCA 6V6GT, a 5Y3, a 12AT7 and an EL84 made in Gt. Britain.
I tested the unknown 12A_7 sized ones first and all of them tested "fail" right away. I went through AX, AT, AY but they either weren't 12A_7s or weren't any good. I couldn't test the rectifier tube so I put it in the maybe box. The 6V6GT failed its test. The 12AT7 tested good and the British EL84 tested good. It was dirty and when I cleaned it, all of the paint came off too.
I went back today and returned the bad tubes and gave him $30 for the good ones.
So, go check with your recycle person and start a tube relationship with them. Also, make sure they let you know if they get in any electronics that might have transformers or caps and resistors you could pull from stuff that had guitar amp power tubes in it.
