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Old 11th Sep 2021, 11:05 pm   #8
Radio Wrangler
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
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Default Re: Valve testers & 'soak' testing.

Once a valve tester has done enough to determine whether a valve is working to spec or not, it's done its job... all of its job. There is then a delay while the next valve is fitted and the pinout, heater and electrode voltages are dialled-in, before the tester is run again. Some tests like shorts and gas are quite low power. So 30% of the time being spent doing full current test is a fair estimate for a machine working commercially, testing valve after valve.

To back up the theory with a proper practical experiment, look back in this forum. It's a few years ago but there was a chap who bought an AVO VCM and decided to use it to burn-in valves for his guitar amplifier. So was the valve testing the tester, or was the tester testing the valve? It cost him a very expensive tester. I don't know whether his guitar gently wept, but the guitarist certainly did.

So that's a no from both theory and practice departments.

David
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