Hi all,
As you probably know, commercial automatic vacuum tube amplifiers
have been available for more than decade, but they are expensive; their
pricetag adds about $2000 to the cost of a comparable manual-tuned
amplifier. For homebrewers, autotune capability is complex and difficult
to duplicate, at least for most of us who are not professional design
engineers with access to sophisticated workshops. For the past year,
I've been working on an autotune control circuit intended to overcome
these barriers. The purpose is to make it possible for amateurs with
average technical skills to add autotune capability to almost any vacuum
tube linear amplifier, whether homebrewed or commercial.
Here are the design goals for my controller:
(1) The performance should rival that of top-of-the-line commercial
autotune amplifiers, (My benchmark is the Alpha 9500.)
(2) The controller should be easy to duplicate for amplifier
builders with average homebrew experience.
(3) The controller should be affordable, costing no more than
$100-$200.
It has taken me a year to realize these objectives, most of which was
spent learning to use an advanced, yet inexpensive, microcontroller
called the Propeller PX32A. (The PX32A was designed in California by the
Parallax Corporation, maker of the popular Basic Stamp controllers) The
PX32A is a sophisticated device containing eight fully independent
32-bit microprocessors that share 31 read/write IO ports and a common
memory for storing variables, computation results and data. These
features make it possible to construct a complete amplifier autotune
circuit on an uncrowded file card-sized printed circuit board using
ordinary through-hole components that can be wired up in an evening. The
circuit board intelligently operates inexpensive stepper motors and
motorized switches to adjust the tank circuits of almost any h.f. vacuum
tube amplifier. An ordinary PC or laptop computer programs the device,
but once programmed, no external computer is required. Because of its
power, the PX32A implements numerous advanced features while requiring
only a handful of additional components.
Although it has taken me almost a year to write and debug the program
code for this controller, I 'm finally ready to move the project out of
the breadboard stage. Here's a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates
the controller's user features. (My eventual amplifier will use an 8877
triode in a conventional grounded grid circuit, but that's a topic for
another day.) I apologize for the crudeness of the video, but hope you
find it interesting and will let me know your comments and suggestions.
(If the below link doesn't work, just Google "W8ZR YouTube Prototype
Controller" )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDGoEElKcU
Thanks and 73,
Jim W8ZR
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