diytube.com

Hi, again!

Making a little bit of progress. My next question:

Using these pin diagrams: http://www.bustedgear.com/res_Tube_pinouts.pdf

... is there a way to use a multi-meter to figure out whether tubes are alive or dead?

I'll ask the folks over at tdpri.com, too.

Thanks -

Charlie

Only thing you can check is the filament. Tubes can be alive, dead or anywhere in between.
If there is a music shop, of better, a guitar shop, they might have a tube tester.

No one I know of has a tube tester. Wwill testing the filament tell me whether a tube is any good? That's all I want to find out.

A tube with a bad filament will be bad. A tube with a good filament could still be bad. Most often the tube is not going to pass emission testing, it will have emission but it will be low enough to be called a weak or bad tube. Shorts in tubes are a bad thing. Most often in older tube gear, capacitors are bad.

Check with the electronics dept. at a local university. Most of them hang on to old test equipment.

What are the tubes plugged into? An amp? Does it work and sound OK? Then the tubes are fine. The best tube checker is the thing they are installed in. Move on.