[sdiy] Mercury Vapor Rectifiers

[Peachey, Dave]

When you mentioned the nice purple glow, I had visions of you using
something like this http://underground-history.co.uk/belsize.php at Belsize
Park tube station on London's underground network (scroll down the page
about half way - you can't miss it).

Now *that* would be impressive!
Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
[mailto:owner-synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl] 
Sent: 27 March 2006 06:38
To: Synth-DIY
Subject: [sdiy] Mercury Vapor Rectifiers

*** WARNING : This message originates from the Internet ***

Hopefully this isn't straying too far off-topic...

While planning on building a "new" tube circuit power supply, and looking
over some available spare parts for it, I'm becoming more and more tempted
to use a couple of 866 mercury vapor rectifiers, just for the heck of it.
Before anyone asks what I'm planning to build that requires enough power to
justify the use of a couple of 866s, I have to say "nothing at the present
time," and therefore I think that I'm safe from having to worry about
flashbacks shorting the transformer out.  I just want to see that cool
purple/blue glow without resorting to powering up an amplifier having a
gassy 7868 (finally, 7868s are once again being manufactured!) in it. :-)

Now for the question: I've read in a couple of places that mercury vapor
rectifiers emit mercury vapor into the air outside of the tubes, but since
these are sealed vacuum tubes, I don't see how this is possible.  Is there
something that I'm overlooking, or are, as I strongly suspect, any writings
mentioning that possibility written by someone who's extremely mistaken
about the dangers of these tubes?
(ok, if they're dropped, or something falls on them, I realize that there
will be a little problem of some mercury on the loose and will have an
excuse, a safety reason, for not bothering with using a vacuum cleaner to
keep my work area clean).

Robert

-- 
   R. D. Davis                The difference between humans & other animals:
an
www.rddavis.org  410-744-4900    unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
her
     Dangling Spiders              other creatures, using dogma to justify
such
   Electronic Music Studio           beliefs and to justify much human
cruelty.


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