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[AMPS] filament life again

To: <amps@contesting.com>
Subject: [AMPS] filament life again
From: jtml@lanl.gov (John Lyles)
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 19:05:36 -0700
Thoriated Tungsten vs oxide cathodes

At 11:46 PM -0500 11/24/99, Amps Digest wrote:
>Finally what factors influence cathode life? Is the number of Power Ups a
>major or minor factor? Does the overall burning time play a major role or
>>is the amount of tube conduction time the primary factor?


Both. Although the mechanical changes in TT filaments in larger tubes 
with handles are more prone to failure than the lower power heaters 
of oxide cathodes. For instance, we have found that the number of 
power ups/downs of the filament has led to problems in X2159 
tetrodes. These are also called the 8974 I think. What happened was 
that the cutoff bias was changing. As tubes aged, there began a 
trickle of DC plate current, which got higher and higher, as the tube 
was cycled. It came to the point where the tubes were in bad shape, 
with a lot of Xrays being generated along with probably internal 
cutting of the anode due to the DC beam. It is believed that this was 
due to the filament sag over time, changing the spacing of the grid 
to filament. We have since gone to a program of leaving the filaments 
lit as long as we can.

The high power filaments in TT tubes move around a lot when they 
transition from cold to hot. This requires good mechanical 
engineering to develop the supports to compensate, and not allow the 
filaments to bow radially into the grid cage.

We see failures in Burle 4616 tetrodes usually after raising the 
filament voltage. These are oxide cathode, 400 kW peak tubes at 200 
MHz. We only run them at 120 kW peak for 10% duty. The filament is 
low power, about 500 watts. Oxide cathodes are nice here as they do 
offer high peak emission for very short pulses. A lot of it relates 
to aging of the filament bars, which are painted with oxide in these 
tubes. Failed ones show signs of metal fatigue and cracking.
Even though they are ramped up, when they get brittle enough, they 
fail, again when turned on. So in this case, the failure is going to 
happen, but the turnon is what causes it to finally occur.



>
>It's the last point that I want to address here. Both the The Care and Feed
>and Svetlana's How a tube works treat this matter in a cursory fashion.
>While it is clear that OXI's due have a shorter useful life  How much
>shorter   is yet to be proven conclusively. But of these write ups present
>their data in an annecdotal fashion. As this one particular Tungsten
>transmitting tube lasted 80,000 hours in commercial service. But is that
>typical? What can the average user expect? In  CCS and in ICAS?
>

80000 hours is not typical in my experience. A properly designed 
tube, when used within ratings, may reach this. However, it is my 
experience that 20,000 to 30,000 hours for a very carefully handled 
tetrode such as 4CW250,000, TH555, 4CW100,000 size tube. 15,000 for 
the Burle 4616 oxide cathode tetrode.

As for the smaller tubes like 3-500Z, 4CX800, 1500B etc, I am not 
sure what to expect. Broadcasters like to see about 20,000 hours or 
more from their 1000 to 30000 watt tubes, which is just over 2 years 
of continuous operation. Any more is wonderful, a bonus, but not a 
guarantee.

An extreme example, we are getting over 100,000 hours on some of our 
1.2 MW 805 MHz klystrons, so they have been in the sockets since 
1980s.

John
K5PRO











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