Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

How many here keep some or all faulty valves and if you only keep some, which ones do you keep?

I will admit to keeping earlier faulty valves but will dispose of post war glass based valves (B7A, B9A...). If nothing else, the Bakelite base may be used to repair another valve or be used as a socket to make adaptors.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

Faulty valves go in the bin. No exceptions. Most of which are B7G/B9A admittedly.

Craig

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

There's no point in keeping them unless they're visually impressive and can be used as non-functioning ornaments.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I do agree with keeping a few octal bases to use as plugs or adaptors.
Keeping dead bottles will catch you out and you will get caught.
Dead is best buried.

Joe

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

In general I agree that dead valves should be disposed of.

Exceptions could include very rare types, of which even a non functioning example is worth keeping for display.

And other rare or very costly types that might be worth repairing one day. Technology improves and the repair of valves might one day become viable. At least for particularly rare types.
Large transmitter valves, CRTs, and large radar magnetrons have been rebuilt in the past. Other types COULD be rebuilt, but were not because replacements were relatively cheap.

And of course if the heater lights, and the vacuum is good then the "dead" valve might work to a very limited extent, and perhaps be usable for some non critical purpose.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

If it's in your dna to be inquisitive, and you don't mind having a 'bad' box, then imho you never know what's around the corner.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I keep a few dead ones.
They are all clearly marked with a white stripe (Tipex) and in the 'dead valve' box.

Why?
I use a couple of B7A and B9G ones to keep the socket pins 'straight' when soldering up new builds or making repairs where the socket wiring is very stiff. I do not have a socket tool.
The octal (and other Bakelite bases) I keep for repairs where a spigot is missing or as others say to make a plug or adaptor.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I have heard of equipment being stocked with dead valves when it's on public non-functioning display. This limits the impact if someone light-fingered should walk off with a couple of vintage KT66s or EF86s, say.

Cheers,

GJ

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

Faded magic eyes as a triode. Valves which are too low emission to be good in one place may be ok in another. Depends on rarity, how many you have and on how much you like using everything ... using EF80's in battery triode circuits, you can reduce the filament volts a lot and they still work! Not really a lot of point if you have boxes of them.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

If the glass is broken they generally go in the bin but I Keep octal ones for the base and top cap - you never know.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I agree with GrimJosef, the valves at the BCLM radio shop looked very vulnerable.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

Flog them to steampunks!! Or make your own steampunk lamp with a few dead valves glued to it and sell it for a small fortune..

Regards
Lloyd

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I had a few soft valves and inquired if the nickel was worth recovering, no. Might be different if 50kg I suppose.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

This:

The idea of a valve repair service is still far-fetched but one central workshop serving the global vintage valve and tube demand might see enough business to make it viable. Aside from early exotica, there are bottlenecks (pun intended) where a troublesome valve can prevent a popular or interesting item working, but where demand would not support new production. The more raw material available the better.

And this:

We have some interesting museum-pieces with rather exposed valves including desirable power triodes. Some of these exhibits will never be made to work again, nor are their original valves present, making them ideal candidates to receive known faulty valves.

I have a plan to sell faulty but visually-intact valves (and other things) mounted on little decorative bases as souvenirs for visitors. When they pay for their ornament at the museum shop, they get a valve and a punched paper tape. At the next scheduled demo of the vintage CNC lathe, they get to feed their paper tape into the machine and it makes a plinth to display the valve. £10 gets you a dead EF80 on a small pine base. £50 gets an octal output valve and a choice of woods. They also receive an info sheet with the valve data and a printout of the CNC program, and of course keep the punched tape. The visually iconic nature of the valve makes it a tangible reminder of their day exploring vintage technology. As there is an informative process behind it, I think this is a better result than purely decorative steampunkification.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I keep some, unless they've lost vacuum. There's been a few tricks posted on here over the years to blast away shorts for example.

I wonder if more solutions could be found for squeezing more life out of them, who knows...

Slightly off topic but I've also kept transformers and pots over the years, and as my skills have developed I've returned to them and since found I can repair them, so i struggle to throw out any substantial components. Caps and resistors definitely end up in the bin!

Adam

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I am very much of the hoarder-in-reverse 'if in doubt throw them out' school; I hate clutter and have [voluntarily] restricted myself to a limited storage-space!

Keeping dud valves seems deeply odd to me; would you keep broken mugs, worn-out tyres, or blown lamp-bulbs/fuses?

[Though my late mother used to put old lamp-bulbs back in the carton the replacement came in, then inevitably these dud-bulbs-in-a-new-box would find their way back into the cupboard-in-the-utility-room where new bulbs were kept, leading to much frustration/time-wasted-fault-finding when a bulb failed and a 'new' one failed to restore illumination. I also worked briefly with a guy who would take a replacement fuse/panel-bulb fron our spares, and put the failed one back in the packet with the new ones; when we discovered what he had been doing I got the entire spares-holding written-off and reprovisioned; the offender left our employment at the same time].

In my youth I used to salvage the octal bases from valves, but having accrued a collection of a few dozen and never having used one, they went to the skip during one of my student-era house moves.

These days I 'crack' failed fuses, and snip a few pins off dud valves to make sure they don't [either inadvertently or through deception] re-enter the supply-chain. In times-past I would 'pop' valves to destroy the vacuum but in recent times, having become aware of the potential risks of some of the materials inside, I just snip a few pins off and they go to WEEE along with failed lightbulbs (whether LED or CFL).

Quite a lot of the supposed "NOS" boxed valves I see advertised are, I suspect, 'pulls' from equipment where a technician has put the failed valve back in the carton the replacement came in, and these have found their way back into the supply-chain.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

I keep a limited number of valves with various hard faults/low emission etc just to prove my HVST is still capable of detecting said defects.Les

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

There is a local sort-it centre that recycles glass bulbs. I was pondering whether to dump my dead stock of valves in the same box. There is always the worry that some bright spark might rescue them and put them eBay. However, maybe it's a better option than landfill..... Jerry

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

People who do that sort of thing need shooting..... (OK, metaphorically at least, generally I'm a live-and-let-live sort of bloke but that kind of caper is a double whammy of annoyance and safety).

I salve my conscience re. duff valves and disposal by assuming that they're unlikely to contain anything odder or more harmful than the tungsten, nickel, brass, leaded solder etc. of ornery lighbulbs or the cornucopia of goodness-knows-what in CFLs and other such devices. As for fuses, I consider applying the hammer and putting the ceramic bits in my or someone else's concrete aggregate along with the broken mugs and other ceramics as as "green" a solution as any.

Re: Faulty valves - Scrap or keep?
 

Steampunks use loads of valves in their equipment for display, some put small LED's at the base to make it look like the heater is on. Sellers at steampunk events do sell valves for people to make their own gear, and the more varied the shape the better. I don't know how much they charge but there is a market for them.