pre-war Rick tube chart ?

[zephyrblau]

hello folks;
first post... please be gentle
i have a Rickenbacker Electro ca. 1933-34 and am going to try to fire it up. (attached pic is copied from another page and is for reference only. mine looks just like this from the front) i've pulled all the tubes save the rectifier (type 80) and reshaped the caps w/ my trusty Variac. no smoke so far! i'd like to test the tubes and inventory some spares, but the only tube i can ID for certain is the type 80. any help identifying the other 3 greatly appreciated.
TIA
cheers
jerry

[scott_s]

Hey Jerry, not sure if you're still following this thread, but would you mind taking some pictures of your own amp? I tried, but couldn't find much Internet info on the earliest Ric amps. With some good pics, we might be able to ID the tubes, and maybe even trace out the circuit.

- Scott

[scott_s]

Hold the phone, I found something: http://jzu.free.fr/rick/amp/3040.html

It's not much, but we've got a name "The Speaker" and a shot into the back. Looks like a pretty low-wattage, single-ended amp. Given the timeframe, the rest of the tubes probably have two-digit numbers as well.

- Scott

[zephyrblau]

hi Scott;
thanks for posting. the site you found is how i got here. i tried contacting him, but no luck. pix of my amp attached. i have found out a couple of things but part of the mystery remains. pretty sure the tube on the left is the rectifier. after comparing it to a couple of 4-pin rectifiers i have in other units, the only thing i know is that it's *not* a type80 nor 83. the tube in the middle is a type47 (for some odd reason i had another one of those & it's identical. on the right (closest) is a type 53... enough of the original marking is intact. on the right in back is a Tung-Sol w/ smoked glass (read; you can't see anything internally so visual comparison is out) it is marked 12 on the base. i have some test data for a type12A which would appear to be an amplifier tube, so that may be a clue, unless the 12 indication is a date code. happy to investigate further, post more pix, etc. okay, that's it for now
thanks again
best
jerry

[scott_s]

Neat stuff! Have you been to Duncan's Tube Data Sheet Locator yet? Between that and a nifty page on two-digit tube tubes, I got this:

12 (same thing as an 11 with different base): triode for battery-powered amplifiers
53: double triode
47: pentode with roughly 2.7W output power.

- Scott

P.S. If the rectifier turns out to be one of the mercury-vapor tubes, you'll want to take extra care with that one!