OT: I Am A Garbage Picker!

[j old school]

I was just out for a ride with my wife, and in the gutter, there was one of those 1950's style HiFi units for garbage pickup...you know the kind that looks like a piece of furniture. So inside this wooden piece of furniture was a "Stereo Fidelity by Pilot" amp! It has a bunch of el84's & 12ax7's among others. Not sure if I can get it to work or what I might use it for, but ripped out the amplifier and took it home. Ideas are welcome! Maybe its just junk, but it loooks pretty cool.

[Roy Howell]

That sounds great. I tend to be a 'rummager' myself. I can see possibilities in stuff that others see as junk (my wife, for one). Thing is, the guy usually threw it away for one of a few reasons... A.It's unfixable. B. He isn't smart enough to fix anything. He buys a new flashlight every time the batteries get low. C. It's something that only us 'rummagers' can turn into something cool and useful and/or see the value in.
Now, if it's 'C', you may just have something there... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] I would love to see it, and give it my 'rummager's' assessment... [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[j old school]

Roy,

Check your email for pics.

J

[Phil O'Keefe]

Something that old is usually fairly easy to fix - unless something like a transformer is blown, then you might have a hard time getting parts. Some tubes can require a bit of a search too... but otherwise, that stuff is nearly always point to point wiring and fairly easy to work on if you know what you're doing. If you DON'T, then stay the heck out of there. The capacitors in a tube amp can hold a charge for a considerable time - even when it's unplugged. And plugged in? Touch the wrong thing and it CAN kill you. So please be careful.

Congrats on the cool find and best of luck with it.

[Matt Zeiner]

Not too likely to be lethal charges in that amp - El84's generally operate around 300 - 350VDC. Give ya a good whack, but its not like there are transmitting triodes in there with 1.2KV plate supplies! Just make a discharge lead with a 1kohm 5W resistor and an alligator clip lead cut in half. Discharge the caps to ground before you stick your hands in there.

[Bastiaan]

Anything above 48 volt CAN be lethal. That is why they set phantom power to 48 volt and not higher.

[Matt Zeiner]

How do you figure that, Basstian? I have a B+K capusle for my measurement mic that runs off of 200V phantom - get a little zinger off of it - thats all.

[Matt Zeiner]

Not that I am avdocating carelessness in any respect when working on tube amps, BUT - I have, over the years gotten zapped many times in the course of my technical career - flyback transformers on TV's - OUCH!, Plate supplies for old Altec drive in theatre amplifers (1.2KV plate voltage) - OUCH!

...........never died.

[Matt Zeiner]

Oh yeah - got hit by an igniter for a Xenon bulb once. THAT experience does not come very highly reccomended.

[TooLoud]

Ahh...
So you weren't born with naturally curly hair, eh?
At least it's not just a bad perm...
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