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Other than digging around for a schematic and building a SS vibrator, who sells these in Canuckastan? I see them for sale in the States but I would like the convenience of buying one up here and the closer to Saskatchewan the better. Mechanical would also work since I have had one buzzing in my Marconi in my 50 Mercury for a number of years now. I don’t see any indication of Just Radio’s selling them and I’m waiting for a reply after sending an email.
Has anybody built one on this forum and if so how well did it work? Yes I did a search before posting but came up empty.I can only imagine the web results you are getting in searching for vibrators 😉
how about opening some car radios to see if you might be able to adapt them? I have a bunch of car radios. Are you local to BC? it;s impossible to tell because if I click your name rather than displaying your area I get a goofy popup about buying a national memnbership even though I’m paid up . hopefully they will fix the forum soon but just be aware no one can see your area.wrecking a different set might be another obvious workaround. but of course not the first option we’d like to explore. Im not sure how the voltages would compare between a battery set and a car radio so take my advice with a pinch of salt.
I guess I better update my personal info. I’m in Saskatchewan but there is very little here for stuff like this. The two radio’s I was given to work on both had bad vibrators making me use a tubing cutter to open up one and this was a surprise. These two radios have a pair of 6AQ5’s crammed tight beside the vibrator. When I put a good vibrator in it was getting very warm to hot leading me to wonder if this radio had excessive B+ current draw like my Mercury radio when the diodes were partially shorted causing the vibrator and transformer to heat up,make the fuse blow and lead me down the wrong path thinking the transformer was shorting out when my offshore multi meter said the diodes were good!! As it ended up the 6AQ5 is running at a fairly higher B+ and pushing out quite a bit of power and heat compared to my older 6V6. I was surprised at how much higher the voltages were in the schematics and when I opened up the vibrator can I discovered totally cooked and crisp broken wires from the pins to the vibrator. I replaced the wires and during this procedure noticed one set of the contacts were blue probably from an oozing buffer capacitor I chopped out to get this thing going. The vibrator buzzed for 5 minutes and died on the operating table leading me to realize this is only good for a donor for a circuit board to be stuffed in. My concern about the SS vibrator is the heat and we know how transistors can be ruined by extreme heat making me think of getting s slightly larger tin can, cutting out the ends, and placing it over the vibrator, mechanical or SS leaving a slight gap all around the vibrator and the can and using it as a reflective heat shield. Since Just Radios doesn’t sell vibrators and I don’t know if Sal’s does is making me realize I might have to dig into the forums discussing building these critters. I should be able to purchase solid state components nearby at Saskatoon and these should be easier to find so this is probably the way to go UNLESS I can find a source of these in Canada??
This is a good indicator of how much heat we are dealing with here. The wires are totally cooked and I was surprised at how cheap the vibrator was built. Instead of having actual points that could be touched up with a file they only had two thin tabs of metal with a slight gap in between for contacts unlike the 5 and 6 pin vibrators used in military and commercial equipment. I have a few of these but they have too many pins and are probably the wrong voltage. They are probably much harder to find so i will leave them alone.
File too big by only a few megs. I guess i will have to use my older digital camera with lower resolution and smaller sized files. This is the second picture today I couldnt upload.
This is the best source I have found so far and you have the option of preassembled or a kit. The kit is $15US and preassembled is $21US$. From what they mention there are complete instructions complete with pictures for assembly but one thing for both options is you either have to mount under the chassis, salvage a male socket plug or use a tubing cutter like I did to neatly open the can if attempting to repair or in this case it can be a home for the vibrator if you prefer. When I attempted repair and placed the can back onto the base I soldered it in four places at the incision to hold it together securely and with these tacked solder joints one could use a hot glue gun or a smooth bead of silicone sealer.
http://www.wjoe.com/elect_kits.htm
I will contact them and enquire about how delicate these are to heat due to the crispy cooked wires in the failed vibrator. A poor design by Macaroni placing a pair of blazing hot 6AQ5s up against the vibrator. They should have know their radios would last almost 70 years 😊Selenium yes.. some days I think ave early senility setting in,, at least I meet new people every day 😉
Here in Vancouver we had Main electronics and they had all sorts of stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else.. A sign in front said more than a million parts. I remember being in there and some other joker behind me was saying he was from the CRA and needed an inventory count 😉but sadly – gone now .. I heard that a place in richmond bought up most of the stock.. Ill see if I can find out the name, I forgot that too .. -!
good thing I have no money to lend lol 😉a little blurb,, this link goes to YELP No info on where tey have gone though.
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/main-electronics-vancouver-2Phil
It’s like the wholesaler in Saskatoon that had parts for tubes as well and he sold to radio TV repair shops but sold to a pair of fools that soon started squabbling and then went belly up! This previous owner now works at B&E Electronics, or as the slang goes Break&Enter in Saskatoon which is nothing in comparison for these items. Probably have parts to build a solid state vibrator or a solid state 6AQ5 or 6V6 but other than that, not much else. Their capacitors have low voltages as well and are probably made by little yellow fingers on kids wearing diapers in an off shore sweat shop. .
Go to http://www.tubesandmore.com (Antique Radio Supply), they have a variety of SS vibrator substitutes.
I have purchased these units from them before when restoring old car radios. Shipping is fast and
units cost about $28. I used a 6VDC Positive Ground unit in a radio for a 1940’s Frazer Manhattan back
about 8 years ago, still running.Thanks VA3KRV and after taking another look at the situation it appears the closest tube to this vibrator is a 6X4 rectifier tube and I have found them to be very reliable in the past but in this case it is a very big source of heat that can be replaced with a pair of rectifiers soldered to the lugs on the socket under the chassis. If it was farther away I wouldn’t bother. Right now my Mylars finally arrived and 140 of them for $5.00 so I can’t complain but I will have to place an order for some 1600 volt caps from the Canadian source mentioned on this forum. The Mylars were from a Chinese seller on ePay offering them for under $5.00 with free or next to free shipping so I figured I had very little to loose if things went south. A great selection and now I’m looking into tubular polyester or polystyrene in a similar fashion but most are only offering one value in multiples or one value in small quantities which means many orders compared to those that have assortments. Disk capacitors offered are common but I got a bunch of these. Years ago I worried about tubes but now it appears its vibrators and capacitors. Many offer assortments of high voltage or higher voltage single value electrolytic axial and radial so I will take a chance at these as well. Quality might be a factor but at least I have a very good Heathkit capacitor tester that does the extensive tests.
Thank you very much for the name and number. I will give Bill a shout and get more details and this perhaps is an alternative to:
http://www.wjoe.com/elect_kits.htm
but at the same time his prices are more than reasonable. I find it quite annoying Canadian sellers that charge American currency and prices AT a higher price which makes me more motivated to purchase from the States at a lower cost like Sal who I mentioned before has lower prices and agreed to ship for free with the purchase I had planned. Other vintage radio forums down in the States mentioned both sources (Canada and Sal) and also mentioned he has much better prices AND they have an advantage over us with a better dollar!! Otherwise I have been sending out enquirers to some of the sellers on ePay that offer free or next to free shipping and very low prices for assortments. Many of them only list one value in assortments of 5 or 10 and if you were to use the list that Sal provides of his Capacitor kits and values you would be piecing together many many orders amounting to more $. I send them a link when they ask what values I want to show them an example. If they want to waste their time and mine with these piddly quantities then they obviously won’t sell much!! In other words get some ambition and motivation to step up to the plate! The prices of my Mylar assortment of less than $5 US with free shipping motivated me and I’m armed with a very good Heathkit capacitor tester.;
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