Author Topic: Tube Factory sell off (Read 6699 times)

calexanian · « **on:** April 10, 2018, 08:50:51 pm »

I am final making a website showing off all the stuff from M.U. Incorporated as the owner wants to retire. Imagine everything state of the art from 1960 still in operation. It's so much stuff I have no clue how to even start selling it all off. I just did a lame wordpress page to start but I may change to something else non template driven.

Comments appreciated, and yes I know the images in the gallery are full size and huge. I will be going more in the weeks to come

http://vacuumtubefactory.com/

Vgkid · « **Reply #1 on:** April 10, 2018, 09:43:58 pm »

That would be a cool walk through.

calexanian · « **Reply #2 on:** April 10, 2018, 09:59:25 pm »

this weekend I am heading down to start sorting things for ebay and will take some video and more pictures.

nctnico · « **Reply #3 on:** April 10, 2018, 10:24:59 pm »

I sport some equipment from Metrix. I never knew they have been in business that long!

calexanian · « **Reply #4 on:** April 10, 2018, 11:17:49 pm »

Metrix testers were pretty much the best ones you could buy, otherwise a company would build their own.

calexanian · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2018, 03:18:00 am »

Added more photos and cleaned up the site more. Added pictures of cabinets full of meters and more pictures of awesome tektronix tube CRT scopes on carts. I will be taking detailed pictures of the items in the metrology cabinet this weekend.

TerraHertz · « **Reply #6 on:** April 13, 2018, 03:39:22 am »

Oh my gosh.

He doesn't need to downsize, he needs to take on an apprentice. Or three.
Can you imagine this place still in operation after another hundred years? What a historical treasure that would be! (It already is.)
Quite tragic to lose that combination of expertise and equipment.

I so wish I could spend a few days there.
Calexanian, the more photos the better. Don't think of it as an ebay exercise, more a historical record.
In fact, could you involve a historical society, to do a really extensive record, do you think? Or would the owner be opposed?

calexanian · « **Reply #7 on:** April 13, 2018, 03:49:53 am »

Actually the owner/operator is a she. I have been contacted by some museums and we will defiantly be placing some things in some. If somebody wants to buy all of it (Accept the things we have already sold and what she and I are keeping of course) she and I would gladly consult for them in how to run a tube business. People have tried in the past. They were more BS salesmen than people interested in electronics manufacturing. It turned us off to the idea. I would more like to hear from hobbyists for stuff to build lasers and nixies and garage setups and such. Real people.

TerraHertz · « **Reply #8 on:** April 13, 2018, 04:13:43 am »

Quote from: calexanian on April 13, 2018, 03:49:53 am

Actually the owner/operator is a she.

Ah, apologies. In fact now I do remember reading a site by a lady valve manufacturer, but can't find the link just now. The same person presumably.

Quote

I have been contacted by some museums and we will defiantly be placing some things in some.

"defiantly." Well you can blow raspberries at entropy, but entropy still wins.
Museum exhibits are dead. D.E.D. Of no use to anyone but gawkers.

Quote

If somebody wants to buy all of it (Accept the things we have already sold and what she and I are keeping of course) she and I would gladly consult for them in how to run a tube business. People have tried in the past. They were more BS salesmen than people interested in electronics manufacturing. It turned us off to the idea.

Exactly as I would expect, sadly. There is only one left, because there is only one of her.

I'm not even a potential, for many reasons. Not the least being crap at business (true story), poor (related), too old, and already having a 'last endeavor' to keep me busy.

Quote

I would more like to hear from hobbyists for stuff to build lasers and nixies and garage setups and such. Real people.

Much more interested here, in vacuum systems and electrons/ions in them. Would love to have certain types of things from there. But opposite side of the world, no way to get around that.

Is there any relatively modern vacuum gauging instrumentation? I'm short of gauges, and such things are light, ie I could probably afford postage at least.
A brain implantable memory chip with her decades of vacuum electronics expertise... I wish.

calexanian · « **Reply #9 on:** April 13, 2018, 04:21:45 am »

Unfortunately its mostly boar anchor era stuff. We do however have thermocouple gauges and such, but I fear postage would be more from the US then what you could get them for domestically, or direct from china for new ones. What do you suppose shipping on a 500 pound floor standing rack with equipment would be air freight? hahahaha

TerraHertz · « **Reply #10 on:** April 13, 2018, 04:36:04 am »

Yeah, that's about what I thought. I'm not too keen on oil diffusion pumps either.

This is the company: http://www.mu-inc.com/ ?
The server seems to be overwhelmed. Can't load anything.

calexanian · « **Reply #11 on:** April 13, 2018, 04:44:59 am »

Everything has been removed from the site, accept basic contact info as she is no longer taking any orders.

calexanian · « **Reply #12 on:** April 13, 2018, 05:46:57 am »

It was just pointed out to me I did not mention the location. Its in Oceanside California.

InductorbackEMF · « **Reply #13 on:** April 15, 2018, 10:55:24 am »

Hi,if you are planing on selling some of the stuff on ebay please do say your account name i love old test gear.

rsjsouza · « **Reply #14 on:** April 15, 2018, 11:50:14 am »

Truly interesting calexanian. Thank you for sharing.

Seeing so much beautiful test gear changing hands for cheap or being scrapped is one of the benefits and curses of living in the US. I can't store the world in my house (nor have the $$$ means to do so).

ikrase · « **Reply #15 on:** April 15, 2018, 12:31:32 pm »

Huh, that's too bad.

I often wish we could have tube frontends for instrumentation. If still trying to sell stuff, might hit up the Fusor Forums. They like diffusion pumps.

tpowell1830 · « **Reply #16 on:** April 15, 2018, 12:58:02 pm »

Hmm, might be a good idea to PM Cody Reeder (Cody's Lab) about diffusion pump.

calexanian · « **Reply #17 on:** April 15, 2018, 03:50:03 pm »

So many diffusion pumps. Well over a hundred. And none of them ever used in semiconductor manufacturing so no toxic chemicals. No mercury either. Most of them were either octoil of silicone.

ikrase · « **Reply #18 on:** April 15, 2018, 04:17:26 pm »

How big? Any air cooled? Or small ( 3 inch or less) water cooled?

calexanian · « **Reply #19 on:** April 16, 2018, 03:10:21 am »

Many 2” NRC and CVC water cooled pumps. I will be updating pictures on the site over the next few days. No air cooled ones that are not in a piece of equipment but I will keep my eyes open.

Electro Detective · « **Reply #20 on:** April 16, 2018, 05:22:55 am »

Contact Youtuber "Mr. Carlsons Lab"

I reckon he'll either be interested and or know others too

This gear needs good homes

calexanian · « **Reply #21 on:** April 16, 2018, 05:53:28 am »

Here are a couple videos I shot today. I forgot to turn the camera to landscape though. All apologies on that.

https://youtu.be/klx1VNisv_w

https://youtu.be/prjACPYE7tE

PointyOintment · « **Reply #22 on:** May 27, 2018, 12:54:47 pm »

Sold much yet?

What's this tube with numbers that go from 0 to 77?

chris_leyson · « **Reply #23 on:** May 27, 2018, 01:50:02 pm »

Quote

What's this tube with numbers that go from 0 to 77?

Two digit Octal maybe.

Cyberdragon · « **Reply #24 on:** May 27, 2018, 07:00:55 pm »

Looks like a register/address indicator, the numbers are arranged in an addition table. It's either a Williams tube itself, or an indicator for what looks like Williams tubes next to it.

TerraHertz · « **Reply #25 on:** May 28, 2018, 01:28:17 am »

calexanian, this guy should be informed of the sale:
http://lampes-et-tubes.info/index-e.htm

Has an amazing and awesome collection of 3,850+ lamps and vacuum tubes.

That 'dual octal' CRT tube reminded me of him.

niladherbert · « **Reply #26 on:** May 29, 2018, 11:42:24 am »

Amazing stuff, sad to see it all shut down, but there are people at home making vacuum tubes, and who knows, maybe someday we will get a Dirtypcbs equivalent for vacuum tubes in China once the surplus supply runs out.
Heres a guy making triodes: https://simplifier.neocities.org/portable.html

Cyberdragon · « **Reply #27 on:** May 30, 2018, 02:29:05 am »

Quote from: niladherbert on May 29, 2018, 11:42:24 am

Amazing stuff, sad to see it all shut down, but there are people at home making vacuum tubes, and who knows, maybe someday we will get a Dirtypcbs equivalent for vacuum tubes in China once the surplus supply runs out.
Heres a guy making triodes: https://simplifier.neocities.org/portable.html

Audio tubes are still in mass production. It would be cool if they ran small batches of other tubes as well.

calexanian · « **Reply #28 on:** May 30, 2018, 06:13:56 pm »

I have duplicate equipment and materials myself and can make tubes but there as of yet has been no real market for them. The imports are too hard to compete with due to price.

Tandy · « **Reply #29 on:** May 30, 2018, 06:54:11 pm »

Shame it is all being broken up, it would cost a fortune to ship all the equipment to the UK otherwise I would have been interested.

CopperCone · « **Reply #30 on:** May 31, 2018, 01:15:23 am »

can you make krytrons for circuit protection?

Expensive for some reason, despite being a cheap tube to manufacture. Like 500$ on ebay.

I would like to experiment with them if I could get em for like 30$ each

calexanian · « **Reply #31 on:** June 02, 2018, 05:11:38 am »

Krytrons are still illegal for export from the US. Also the keep alive electrode in them sometimes has some pretty nasty stuff.

niladherbert · « **Reply #32 on:** June 02, 2018, 01:46:38 pm »

Quote from: calexanian on May 30, 2018, 06:13:56 pm

I have duplicate equipment and materials myself and can make tubes but there as of yet has been no real market for them. The imports are too hard to compete with due to price.

Do you have the ability to make oscilloscope crts? Cause that would be quite cool and will be necessary when the ones on ebay dry up

calexanian · « **Reply #33 on:** June 06, 2018, 05:14:44 am »

I have been thinking about making a small generic CRT. Vacuum Tube Products, which was the forerunner to M.U. INC made various CRT's and much of the materials to make them are on hand, accept bulbs. I would need to figure out something for that. It would not however be practical to make specific replacement parts for old scopes. There are still several good CRT manufacturers and rebuilders out there and if those experienced businesses can't provide them at a reasonable price, then it is probably not practical. Simple things for demonstration or experimentation may be a different story.

I am currently talking too two separate parties who I have dubbed as having a chance and the right attitude and understanding to possibly do something who wish to purchase equipment and materials to potentially do something. One group is more in the audio/pro recording space and the other in the antique radio/RF space. Also I have my own endeavors. There is still enough equipment for yet another company or two.


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Author Topic: Tube Factory sell off (Read 6699 times)

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