De Forest Audion Box

comments (2) December 24th, 2009 in Reader's Gallery

Jeff Noyes Jeff Noyes, member
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I have a friend here in Macon, GA (a retired ENT physician) who collects and rebuilds old radios. He also collects old pieces of electronic "stuff" and one of his prizes is an authentic 1914 (?) De Forest RJ5 Audion Detector tube, but he didn't have the whole box. My project - a Christmas present for him - was to build the box for him and mount all the hardware, which he provided. The box is made of Honduran mahogany, which I had left over from another project, and I milled to 1/2" thick and is a 6" cube. The discerning observer will note that the real RJ5 is NOT mounted in this photograph. This is just a modern light bulb that has about the same shape. He will put the real RJ5 in it when he gets it home. I think it's worth $3K to $5K. None of the internal wiring is hooked up and he does not plan to "light it up" - the filaments don't last very long. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audion_tube

http://www.antiqueradio.com/deforest_detect_5-97.html


 


Design or Plan used: My Own Design - Jeffrey Noyes
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Comments (2)

Jeff Noyes Jeff Noyes writes: Sorry to take so long... the audion was the first vacuum tube, used to control electric current. This one is not a working model - actually turning it on uses up the filament very quickly.
Posted: 3:14 pm on September 15th

bllewis228 bllewis228 writes: Very cool. What exactly is it's purpose?
Posted: 9:04 pm on January 14th

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