[Amps] Famous Alpha plate clip desoldering issue

[Jeff Blaine]

I picked up an old 76pa which seems to be in otherwise FB condition.  2400v idle on the plate cooking away those pipes who have not been used in a couple of years prior to some initial power testing tomorrow.

Only strange thing I noticed on the inspection was that every single one of the braid connections to the plate cap had delaminated.  The braid is tarnished so I assume it's silver plated - hard to tell the condition of the solder connection otherwise.  But the braid was lose enough that the cap could be removed from the braid just by bending the braid slightly.

I got to thinking about what could have caused that.  Came down to one of three possibilities:

1. The famous alpha plate clip desoldering issue, known world-wide to all Alpha owners but not to nubees who expect these things to be soldered in the traditional way.  Not to worry though because....

2. The amp creates a virtual short when keyed down due to it's massive high power output only to have the joint break again with key up.  A technology known only to Alpha and is top secret such that RF Concepts was unable to dig the secret from the ETO data archives.  The secret sauce lost for all time.

3. OR - The dogs were whipped mercilessly at one time, so hard that their anode temp rose high enough to desolder, AKA SB220 pins can sometimes do.   Say it's not so!

Hoping some of the learned 76 owners may have some insight.

There was some what appeared to be "melted" gasket material visible on each tube.  Maybe 1/4 in long and a tiny fraction of an inch in height and depth.  I say melted because it was stuck firmly to the tube and rounded and shiny on the exposed surface.  Interesting because the sealing material will break with age but in that case it generally has a rough and "flat" appearance.  

73/jeff/ac0c
www.ac0c.com