6V6 tube with loose plastic base

[punderdown]

Just got the kit, very excited to start building my eighth Bottlehead! The plastic base and pins on the bottom of one of the 6v6 tubes appear to be loose and there is about an eighth of an inch rotational movement in relation to the glass part of the tube. Is this ok? Is there a way to test the tube with just a multimeter?

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Thermioniclife]

the heater pins 2 and 7 should read a very low resistance, something like .4 ohms or so. All other pin combinations should show no continuity between them. that's about all you can check with a dmm.

 

[punderdown]

Thanks Lee, I actually get about 4 Ohms between pins 7 and 2 on both tubes, but on the tube with the loose base the reading goes haywire if I wiggle the glass at all.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

What I do when I run into that is to run superglue around the edge between the glass and the plastic base to secure it.  These bases are glued on from the factory, but that was done ages ago and it isn't too crazy that they sometimes come loose.  If you wiggle the tube enough, you will damage the connections between the base and the tube itself, so I would avoid doing that.

 

[punderdown]

I superglued the base as suggested. Now when I take a reading between pins 7 and 2 I get 10 ohms, but the slightest movement causes it to fluctuate, whereas the other tube is steady at 4 ohms.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

The movement may have broken the lead wires in the tube.  It shouldn't do any harm to go ahead and use it in the build, and if there is an issue you'll most likely notice that the tube itself just doesn't glow.

 

[punderdown]

The tube in fact does not glow when I do the glow test on page 33 of the manual. I swapped tubes and the channel not glowing followed the tube.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

You can contact replacementparts(at)bottlehead(dot)com about getting a replacement tube.  Do be sure to paste a link to this thread in your request.

-PB