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Hi, the area I live in ia very humid especially in Spring, do I need to put my tubes into a drybox (kind of auto dehumid box of some kind) and if yes, what would be the normal humidity level (ie. 60-70& humidity)? we have 90-100% humidity for the last 2 weeks already.Or does it really matters?
Follow Ups:
Thank you all. I have about 40-50 12ax7 size tubes and about 12 KT88/6550. Actually I live in Hong Kong and the humidity goes between 90-100% during March to June and then drop off about 70-80% the rest of the year so humidity is an issue as I own a Digital camera with about 5 lenses, oh well DC may be a bit diff from tubes but....Sometimes it gets very wet inside the house and you can feel the "water" coming out off the wall. I have a dehumidifier but still not enough to make the house dry. Guess I will put my tubes in the drybox where I store my DC & lens then. I pbb set it to about 60% or so.
depends on how many tubes you're talking about. Hundreds? or just a few? If you don't have too many you could go to a flea market, gun show, military surplus store, or a ham fest and pick up a few of those old military "ammo cans" They're built to withstand the hardship of combat so they're tuff-as-nails and have a waterproof seal at the top.The larger ones could probably hold 50 or 60 6L6GC size tubes, or maybe a couple hundred 12AX7 size tubes. Put your tubes in there, toss in a couple bags of desiccant, close the lid tightly and your tubes would be OK for years.
I have a few things I store in those military cans for long-term storage. They seem to work quite well, but they are not "attractive" decor so they'll have to go in the garage or shed or the Missus may go on the warpath.
Salt spray eats everything. Steel mill and power plant emissions eat almost everything. The tubes get hot in operation, so any surface moisture is driven off immediately. As long as the humid atmosphere is not corrosive to the tube pins, you should not have problems with storage.If you have NOS tubes in valuable original boxes, though, the cardboard may deteriorate from excessive humidity in storage. They might even get moldy, so a dry-box would be the only way to keep them. A freezer would prevent deterioration as long as they were cold, but the condensation when you warm them up might be bad.
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