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Is anyone aware of a tube that the Nazi's produced that was similar to the 6L6 or identical? What about Stalin's Russia? The U.S. made the 6L6 in the 1930s, the Nazi's rose at the same time along with Stalin's purges and industrialization. Therefore electronics came of age in both nations.

I am asking this question out of curiosity as I am a history minor.

Don't think Germans made tetrodes with beam forming plates, it would have been a pentode. Back in the 30s 4 volt filaments were popular so maybe a AL4? A = 4 volt filament, L = Pentode.

Seems like the beam forming plate technology was cutting edge in the 1930s. I wonder if the Russians did that at the same time. The only Russian tube information I reliably can find is cold war era stuff.

For Europe, it seems for medium power stuff they swore by the pentode, judging from the EL34, so it does not surprise me that they swore by power pentodes. Do you all think that precedent was set in the 30s?

As far as Hi-FI goes, I cannot tell between the 6L6 and EL34. Guitars, it is so easy to tell.

The beam forming plate was RCAs way of getting around Philips' pentode patent. A lot of Russian tubes are copies of RCAs pre war designs because they were shared during WWII with the lend/lease program. Don't know of any pre war Russian radios, Germany made many, I have one.

DeathRex wrote:The beam forming plate was RCAs way of getting around Philips' pentode patent. A lot of Russian tubes are copies of RCAs pre war designs because they were shared during WWII with the lend/lease program. Don't know of any pre war Russian radios, Germany made many, I have one.

The 6L6G was RCA's way of coping the KT66 , circumventing , the patents as Death Rex says , the only 6L6's the Russian had where the ones we sent them , anything German wouldn't have an octal base , before 1946 in the way of a power tube .

6P3S (6П3С) is a Russian analog of 6L6, I don't think it was manufactured in 30th.
You will need 6P3S-E long-life variant for good sound quality.

Worth stating that any variant of the 6P3S shuldn't be used in place of a 6L6GC

Probably the closest thing to a Nazi era "6L6" would have been the German WWII "Wehrmacht" LS-50, of which the Russian GU-50 is an updated, improved post- WWII copy.

The closest USA produced tube would probably be the 6146, which is a higher-powered descendant of the 6L6.

/ed B

Worth stating that any variant of the 6P3S shuldn't be used in place of a 6L6GC

An EL34 and 6L6 basically are the same class of tube. You can change them if the B+ voltage is low enough and a re-bias job is done.

It seems to me that at first glance the 6P3S and the 6L6 are interchangeable. What would make them not work? Biasing?

6L6GC has a plate dissipation rating of 30 watts, the older / smaller versions of 6L6, 6L6G, 6L6GB, 6P3S have a PD rating of 19Watts.
A 6L6GC can replace any of the "lesser" versions, but not the other way around, unless the PD is not exceeded.

/ed B

Voltage too.

I have repaired many a 6L6GC guitar amp that had a pre-sag B+ of 480V. The owner put Russkies in and described quite a light show

I tend to employ the 6P3S / 6П3С in the place of somewhat "enhanced" 6V6s, that works well, and avoids any undesired pyrotechnics or reactor melt-downs.

Good 6L6GCs can take the high voltages and plate dissipations, the "weenie-6L6s" cannot.

The 807 is considered a "variation" on the 6l6 theme. It was introduced 1 year after the 6l6, but it has a PD of 25W.

The dirty commies swiped the tube, then renamed it the (Cyrillic) r-807. You can still find NOS Soviet era r-807 tubes on ebay for cheap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6L6#Variations

battradio wrote:

DeathRex wrote:The beam forming plate was RCAs way of getting around Philips' pentode patent. A lot of Russian tubes are copies of RCAs pre war designs because they were shared during WWII with the lend/lease program. Don't know of any pre war Russian radios, Germany made many, I have one.

The 6L6G was RCA's way of coping the KT66 , circumventing , the patents as Death Rex says , the only 6L6's the Russian had where the ones we sent them , anything German wouldn't have an octal base , before 1946 in the way of a power tube .

The 6L6 came out before the KT66 did....take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6L6 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KT66 for reference.....

Greg

1625 is an 807 with a 12.6V filament and UX-7 base, the 1614 was basically a mil-spec 6L6, and 1619 was a directly heated "6L6" with a metal envelope, and 2.5V filament.

The 6BG6G is similar to an 807, packaged in an octal based jug.

/ed B