Camera tube display
 

A friend just completed a woodworking project to make a display base for two of my vintage camera tubes. :banana:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8630/...33bebccd_b.jpgIMG_6399CRLR5 by old_tv_nut, on Flickr

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7491/...c6111a2a_b.jpgIMG_6407CRLR5 by old_tv_nut, on Flickr

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8609/...45954179_b.jpgIMG_6409CRLR5 by old_tv_nut, on Flickr

Very Nice:yes:
Is the iconoscope still usable ?
I thought I read they all lost
vacuum years ago.
Ed

I'd guess not useable, but I don't know.

That is a great way to display those tubes. Thanks for the idea!

That looks great ! !

I would have them held in place with some FunTac..... I think I would also use it on the
wood to the desktop as well.....

But then I have squirrels and cats runnin around...... Sometimes things go bump....

.

No pets or kids here, so they are not stuck down. If Chicago has an earthquake, I'm out of luck.

"wood to desktop"? - if you mean the uprights to the base, they are tightly screwed (and maybe glued, I didn't think to ask).

The wood base.... So it can't slide.... Yah the little critters had a way of doin' stuff
I would not think possible..... That is a very nice display !

.

Wow.History of TV right there.How beautiful .I hope its on a safe shelf in a display cabinet .

I would like to think he made several and would sell them and save me the time to build one. Is he game for that?

BTW, It is very likely the Ike tube is still usable. They don't naturally "lose" their vacuum.

This is the perfect post to answer a question that was posted to the KTLA-TV alumni website. Here's the question regarding the Iconoscope tube:

David Shipman. "In 1962, as I was helping John DeMuth and Roy White with an inventory in the Maintenance Dept., they had to explain (as if they were speaking to a three year old) why you should only hold one of these tubes face down...anyone know?"

I couldn't answer David's inquiry. Anyone know?

-Steve D.

The light from an AMBIENT source could damage the photosynthetic coating ?!?

Holding the tube face down would prevent any loose particles dislodged from the gun from falling onto the surface of the image plate and damaging it.

This is the same reason that orthicons and vidicons are supposed to be kept face UP.

Not a bad answer Sandy. The guy who asked the question came up w/this answer:

David Shipman: "When it's held face up, dust may fall onto the target and scratch it...top is the large end, which should be uppermost."

N21XK, You're reply is very similar to the answer given by former KTLA employee David Shipman, who asked the original question.

-Steve D.

The reason to keep them pointed down is, as stated, to avoid spots from loose particles.

However, when working with common 931a photomultiplier tubes for a flying spot scanner in the 70s, I found that they could be damaged by exposure to bright office fluorescent lighting [edit - before ever being powered up. Taken out of the box in a dimly lighted room and installed in the scanner, they were good, but if exposed to bright light in the process of opening the box or replacing a tube to test another one, they would get worse.]

We had two brands, RCA and Hamamatsu. The Hamamatsu's, out of the box, were less noisy than the RCAs, but could be made noisier if you exposed them to the office lighting. [Edit: IIRC, the RCAs were just noisier whether exposed to bright light or not.] I never made a test to determine if that was because the output was reduced and subsequently we had to turn up the multiplier voltage, or if they were just noisier at the same voltage (i.e., by measuring the voltage required before and after). I suspect that the output of the photocathode was less after exposure and we had to turn up the voltage to get normal output.

Photo-emissive surfaces are made from compounds / alloys that hold their electrons loosely and that seems to involve the compounds holding together loosely as well - characteristics are easily degraded by high temperature, but I have never seen a description of the effect we saw with the Hamamatsu's. I suspect that other tubes like the iconoscope could have the same problem, but if they were always manufactured or handled in a bright environment, no one ever saw the original higher performance.

Sorry, this took several months of tiny bits of a busy man's spare time, and I don't feel I can impose any more. Plus, the drawings are gone. Maybe you can tell that the dimensions were made precisely for this particular tube - some of the dimensions can vary up to a quarter inch from tube to tube according to the spec sheet.