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Massive old vacuum tube, anyone know what it is?
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schmitt trigger:
A Crookes X-Ray tube?
Found this image in Wikipedia.

Gyro:

--- Quote from: schmitt trigger on July 13, 2021, 07:52:47 pm ---A Crookes X-Ray tube?
Found this image in Wikipedia.

(Attachment Link)

--- End quote ---

Ah, in the Crookes tube the filament was wrapped around a bit of Asbestos. It's purpose was to liberate a bit of gas so that the vacuum didn't become so hard, due to adsorbtion in the electrodes, for it to conduct that it stopped conducting. Being a cold cathode tube, it needed some gas ions kicking about in order to work at an achievable voltage.

P.S. Some early versions actually had a protruding sealed end metal tube (or the glass itself) that you could warm occasionally with a flame instead of a filament. A bit more risky! Too much gas was as bad (worse?) as too little in terms of X-ray production.
jmelson:

--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on July 13, 2021, 01:53:58 am ---
--- Quote from: macona on July 13, 2021, 12:55:22 am ---Oh, I realize that, my lathe is from that time period. But there are just parts here that scream production pieces to me. Plus this is a very small school, even smaller back then and I have seen a lot of their other glasswork and brought some of it home and non if it is anything like this.

Sent a message over to radiomuseum, we will see if they respond. Crossing my fingers.

--- End quote ---

You can also try this guy. He claims to have a collection of more than 4000 lamps and tubes. In fact I found a tube that is very similar in shape to yours, i.e., it has two opposite electrodes, two glass bulbs, and a middle ring.



According to its datasheet, it is used to "decouple the receiver from a common transmitting and receiving antenna during a period of transmission".

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That would be called  a "T/R" tube, usually gas-filled, used in old radar sets, to protect the mixer diode in the reciever from the transmit pulse.

Jon
macona:
I think at this point we can safely say we will never know what the tube is for. Thats fine with me since I had no plans to use it, Im just going to make an acrylic stand for it.
bdunham7:
If it is modified or one-off, nobody is likely to recognize it for sure.  You would have to disassemble it and probably examine that lower structure to have any sort of idea.
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