[N_Cook]

As far as heaters are concerned. I went to a lecture by Tony Sale of
Colossus rebuild fame
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/mk2.htm
About 2,500 valves in this computer.
They power up Colossus each day via a motorised variac.

How many valve failures a year, due to failed heaters in those 2,500, would
you expect ?
Please reply here

Answer tomorrow

 

[N_Cook]

In my field (audio amp repairs) actual valve heater failures are very
rare - Occasionally you see a case where the contact between valve pin
and internal riser is intermittent. I wouldnt like to guess at Colossus,
maybe one or two, possibly none. Of course valves ain't what they use
to be!

Ron

They are all old contemporary valves. I should have said how many failures
for whatever reason in those 2,500 per year ? considering that they are
powered up slowly from cold, to reduce that reason for failure .

 

[N_Cook]

<http://www.mosweb.com/knowledgebase/tp5.htm>
<http://www.john-a-harper.com/FilamentHeating>
About 100,000 hrs lifetime. No clue if that's mean, median, or
average. Ignoring the bell curve and assuming burned-in tubes without
infant mortality, that would be one failure every 40 hours for 2,500
tubes. With 8760 hrs/year, that's 219 failures per year.

However, that's not really true because the failures are not uniform.
With new tubes, there's a peak for early failures (infant mortality),
a long time with a very low failure rate, and then another big peak at
end-o-life, where filament thinning turns them into fuses.

I recall stats from the original Eniac, that was initially
experiencing a tube failure every 30 minutes of operation. Someone
finally decided to reduce the filament voltage from 6.3VAC to about
5.9VAC(?), which extended the lifetime dramatically by reducing metal
migration/thinning. Reduced filament voltage and temperature are not
a great idea for power tubes, but are well tolerated by digital tube
(flip-flop) circuits. I suspect Colossus uses a similar trick in
addition to inrush current control.


Predicted or actual tube life?

--
Jeff Liebermann [email protected]
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

In the 40s Colossus was left on 24/7 on the recommendation of Tommy Flowers
, Dollis Hill engineer, for maximum filament life.

Answer tomorrow will be what Tony Sale actually experiences in running the
Bletchley colussus 7 days , only days , a week

 

[Arfa Daily]

In the 40s Colossus was left on 24/7 on the recommendation of Tommy
Flowers
, Dollis Hill engineer, for maximum filament life.

Answer tomorrow will be what Tony Sale actually experiences in running the
Bletchley colussus 7 days , only days , a week

I seem to recall reading that during the service time of the original
machine, not a single valve failed. Were they KT66s or 88s ...?

Arfa

 

[N_Cook]

I seem to recall reading that during the service time of the original
machine, not a single valve failed. Were they KT66s or 88s ...?

Arfa

About 5 valves a year need replacing.

IIRC about 1,000 of them are thyratrons, 2 are needed for each single bit of
memory storage. The mark 1 did not have them and required running 2 loops of
paper tape , the mark 2 required only 1 paper tape loop

 

[[email protected]]

As far as heaters are concerned. I went to a lecture by Tony Sale of
Colossus rebuild fame
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/mk2.htm
About 2,500 valves in this computer.
They power up Colossus each day via a motorised variac.
How many valve failures a year, due to failed heaters in those 2,500, would
you expect ?
Please reply here

Say, it runs 8 hours a day, every day... That is 2922 hours of operation a
year. By rough estimate, every 5 years the complete valve supplement will
be renewed. That is 500 valves a year. When it runs only 4 hours a day, it
will be half this number, etc.

 

[[email protected]]

About 5 valves a year need replacing.
IIRC about 1,000 of them are thyratrons, 2 are needed for each single bit of
memory storage. The mark 1 did not have them and required running 2 loops of
paper tape , the mark 2 required only 1 paper tape loop

I should have consulted both the life expectany figures of the tubes, and
the rest of the thread before answering too late. Is 5 valves a year a
long term average?