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I just bought a pair of coincident amps and they sound excellent. I know it is recommended not to touch the tubes as the oils from our hands can restrict the heat dissipation. After having the amps on for a couple of hours I noticed some of the tubes have some swirls of fluorescent blue. It looks really cool but I have a feeling this is oil from my hand. I've tried to clean it of with a cotton towel but it looks like I'm not getting all of it. What's the best way to clean tubes?
Do not worry about the blue color in your power tubes, it is normal. The getter will take care of it after a while.
...is just that INSIDE the tube.
It is the residual gases that are ionizing because of the cathode emissions and the plate voltage.
You cannot clean this !
A small amount is normal in power tubes when it is seen. If there is blue inside the elements the tube may be getting gassy and not operate properly.
Hope this helps
Ed
Actually it's more likely the blue glow is caused by fluorescence of the glass caused by electron bombardment. If the glow is from against the inside of the glass envelope it's fluorescence.
Oil from hands does absolutely nothing to a tube, that is a myth. If you are worried about it, wash your hands before touching a tube.
there are all sorts of admonitions in the instructions for those halogen replacement lamps. I've even seen some that come with their own gloves.
It isn't too far fetched that someone would then transfer their understandings to vacuum tubes.
I'm not apologizing for them but it is a pretty normal human assumption - and the root of many misunderstandings.
Cheers,
David
Yes, but it IS true of halogen lamps! Oil deposits from fingers on halogens can be a problem. It's just - some people, as you say, don't understand that halogens are not vacuum tubes!
Particularly with NOS tubes, anyone who think they were not handled by naked human hands many times along the way before they ended up in their equipment, and that the good folks making the tubes in the factories decades ago were all wearing nice little white gloves, is just plain wrong.
hey-Hey!!!,
Quartz is needed in halogen lamps because the envelope temp is so high. Quartz is also very brittle...fingerprint oil carbonizes, and then the black radiates better than the quartz and resultant thermal expansion stress causes a breakage. Tubes don't get anywhere near this hot, and their glass is much less brittle as well.
A bit ov history...:) Bebe first used quartz windows in his bathysphere because it was stronger than plexiglass. Grandfather and his brother succeeded in convincing him of the use of a test dive( w/o passengers ), and upon return to the surface found the windows had cracked. The FNRS2 and Trieste both used plexi windows w/o issue( to 35k feet below the surface in case of the Trieste).
cheers,
Douglas
Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world...but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.
What he said!
That myth needs to be put to bed and the sooner the better.
This is how this sheeet started back when.Brylcreem!!!! I tell ya.
"Brylcreem's purpose is to keep combed hair in place while giving it a shine or gloss. It is an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilised with beeswax. Other ingredients are fragrance, calcium hydroxide, BHT, dimethyl oxazolidine, magnesium sulfate, and stearic acid."
Edits: 07/02/09
Aha! Jusy like Camolin, A little dab'll do ya!
That blue glow has nothing to do with oils from your hands. Personally, I never gave it much thought, and I've never had any problems. I clean my tubes with an alcohol based window cleaner, works for me. Do a search about that blue glow in your tubes and you'll see some very col pics of the phenomena.
"I KNOW you can hear it, but are you REALLY listening?"
Bench grinder.
so you can clean the inside of the glass?
No, the inside is best cleaned with a wash of hydrofluoric acid. It can dissolve the glass taking the contaminants away with it. Make sure you get the plates clean while you are at it.
In case the censors are watching, my previous post is in jest. HF is fantastically dangerous. Do not try to use it to clean your tubes. Don't even try to buy the stuff.
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