I’m fairly new to the world of antique radios and amplifiers so bear with me. After a few projects I have the need for a high voltage power supply and would like to build one. My question is what voltages should I have available from my power supply, what voltages are most common to need when working with vacuum tube equipment? I was thinking about using type a 80 rectifier tube and a selection of gas discharge tubes to achieve different voltages. Thank you in advance for the help.
Hi, if you plan on doing Vacuum tube stuff you will likely need a proper variable multi-voltage-outputs power supply and you are best going for a proper regulated Power supply and I see 2 practical options: 1: you either shop around for a vintage style commercially made power supply and some good examples would be EICO-1030, HEATHKIT IP-17, HEATHKIT IP-32, HEATHKIT PS-4, KNIGHT KG-664, LAMBDA-71 or 2: you download all of the above service manuals look at each individual schematic and decide which one you would like to replicate with the components you either already have or can get. Mr. Carlson has some really nice videos on explaining and troubleshooting some of the above supplies and one video in particular that comes in mind right now is this (on YouTube) and I highly recommend that you watch it paying extreme attention to everything that he explains and you’ll understand a lot better what you need to do and what to expect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JroiDZgReak&t=1399s
PS: those commercial Power Supply units are quite rare and by now are overly expensive and I decided that one day (when I can get enough spare time) I will try to replicate /build one of these units myself for my bench er… but the most important component to find is the transformer or you can also use a number of transformers to make up for the missing windings but you-ll understand better after studding those schematics and watching the above video. Good luck.
I made the decision a couple years ago i was going to do more with tubes so i would need a reasonable variable regulated bench supply. Finding anything i could justify the cost of was disappointing so it was obvious i would have to build my own. I did a lot of research & took on Mr C’s advice in some of his past You-Tube videos but i stumbled upon one that loosely followers the IP-17 Heathkit approach. (I hope it’s okay to mention other folks here on this forum) but the project is Pete Millet’s “big bad high-voltage bench power supply”…
http://pmillett.com/HV_bench_supply.htm
It uses a bunch of 807’s or equivalent as the pass elements & the power transformer is from a vintage Tek oscilloscope, a Tek 120-120. I feel kind of awkward that it means a really incredible old ‘scope has been junked out for parts but that seems to be the way things are. It was this component that became my biggest conflict though as i was having a lot of trouble locating one on ebay so i went to my local transformer winder for a quote. They could wind me one no problem but it would be just over NZD$700…! (it was the 5A filament windings that caused the price due to the gauge of copper wire). This truly blew my budget but by then i had all the parts in that i had hoarded up including a few used but working & tested 807s. I even found some great analog meters.
So one morning i decided there & then to take the hit & go out to the transformer winders & hand over my hobby budget funds for a year when for one more second i stopped & checked ebay… Wow there was a Tek 120-120 & it had only just been posted! So without thinking i bought it & even after the shipping to my Country it saved me so much! (The seller said they had never had an experience of doing all the work to put an item on ebay for it to sell virtually instantly)!
So of course there’s a another side to this project. Life for me has gotten in the way with it but now i am retired after a year of my employer closing the business making me redundant & an age where its unlikley you will be hired i now finally have the time to assemble this HV-bench supply… (which will begin as soon as i complete a few other Mr C projects, a couple of repairs oh & put an entire new roof on my house)!!!