In the Facebook etracer group a member asked how important it is to supply a test voltage beyond 400V. Why can't we just test a tube up to 400V and extrapolate the curves from there. Well, besides the trivial answer that extrapolation is not reliable there are actually situations where extrapolation simply doesn't work.

I've heard about Jean Christophe Morrison, or known as J.C. Morrison for about two decades. JC used to write articles for Sound Practice in the 90s and back then I was the translator for Sound Practice Chinese edition. We never met or connected before JC purchased the etracer kit but I did learned a lot from JC's articles and from his blog. It is an honor for me to get such a positive feedback from JC. 

http://www.labjc.com/?p=4735

I am not sure since when vacuum tube testers like etracer are categorized as "pulse-type" tube testers. And this type of tube testers are usually being criticized as not accurate because the DUTs are not biased at the quiescent point and hence during testing the temperature of the DUT is lower than the temperature of the DUT in the real circuits. However, little information can be found on the accuracy requirement. How bad is it? And how much deviation is acceptable? 1%? 10%. In this article I will explore this issue a little deeper and measurement data are provided for references.

Thanks Ale for writing a review on his initial experience with an etracer. Ale is a famous blogger in valves (vacuum tubes) electronics. His website, Bartola Valves gets more than 1000 clicks per day. Ale is also an owner of a utracer and his comments are impartial. Ale got hit by the VAT(Value Added Tax) badly and he is the guy paid the highest amount of money for an etracer in the world. Based on his experience I adjusted the pricing structure to ease import tax. The link to the full review is:

http://www.bartola.co.uk/valves/2018/01/01/etracer-build-and-review/#more-7019

Click on the following icon to enter Ale's blog.

  1. The differences between etracer and utracer
  2. Introduction to the etracer software
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