Is there a "trick" to plugging in a Switch or did I kill it?

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by snme2pm1

Was that a live chassis or did you park your nose near an anode cap, or perhaps otherwise such as can not be recalled?

Flyback transformers... loads of "fun" to be had with those. In my high school electronics classes we'd sometimes have a chance to take apart an old TV and those were highly sought after. Not to mention the large farad 300V or higher caps, which we'd charge up on the 300V DC supplies and then torture each other with. To this day, I still have some telltale scars on my arms where I got zapped by my classmates.

I was happy to be sufficiently down the exit slope of valves (apart from CRT which happened considerably later) that I have never constructed any tool using such tech.

In my college years in electronics, we actually did briefly cover vacuum tube tech. In concept/theory mostly, talking about the roles of the emitters, collectors, etc. In a way it actually helped visualize in a macro scale some of what happens in a semiconductor.

I can't claim to have ever held more than 3 or 4 vacuum tubes in my entire life (not counting a CRT), but I did find it interesting that even in the late 80's/early 90's they still got a brief mention. I wonder if the auto mechanics ever got a brief mention of how a horse drawn carriage works?

[LaurV]

Wayne is a good guy, and he will not be upset, especially when the thread was not hijacked, because the issue is already solved...

[EdH]

I remember taking an FCC exam (USA) for one of my licenses many years ago. It had 100 questions and two were about transistors. Both of them were on simple biasing. Vacuum tubes, now they were a bit more indepth.

I still have some tube devices in storage. I wonder if Radio Shack still honors their lifetime warrantied tubes... Actually, I have a tube tester somewhere in storage, too. And a CRT Tester/Rejuvenator, and a...