[R-390] Tube organizing help

[Roy Morgan]

At 03:08 PM 1/4/2007, R390rcvr at aol.com wrote:
...I have several thousand tubes for my various beasts, and don't have a good
>organizing system.

Here's how it works at my place, at least so far as I have actually 
organized the tubes:

I use reclaimed office copy machine paper boxes. Inside them, I use the 
flat trays that soda cans come it.  (Both I acquire at the coffee/copier 
room at work.)

Any tubes I have in individual cartons can be stood up in the trays. Two or 
three trays fit into each paper box.  In many cases, I have a lot of one 
type of tube, e.g. 6AU6 or 6V6, and they go into plastic freezer-quality 
baggies clearly marked with the type number.  Paper notes may go into the 
bag: "All test good" or "Not tested" or whatever.

Premium tubes such as 7788, Bugle Boy anything, or the like get new tube 
boxes and are marked in red.

Larger tubes in boxes can similarly be stacked into either the trays or in 
the paper box itself.

I generally separate mini tubes from octals, and larger tubes get their own 
boxes. Here are examples of categories:

Minis:
Bulk Minis
Octals
S-line tubes
Large TV tubes (compactrons)
Small TV tubes (4-, 5- volt ones)
Low voltage Rectifiers (5U4, 5R4, 5Z3's and the like
High voltage Rectifiers (872A, 866's ...)
Delay tubes
VR tubes
Transmitting tubes
(A pair of 4-400's gets it own box)
Dud tubes (for scrounging the bases to use as connectors or coil plugs)

I have made no effort to account for every tube, or to set in order all the 
tubes I have.  Maybe one day.

Roy



- Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing
13033 Downey Mill Road, Lovettsville, VA 20180
Phone 540-822-5911   Cell 301-928-7794
Work: Voice: 301-975-3254,  Fax: 301-975-6097
roy.morgan at nist.gov --