I’ve got an old radio from France, circa before I was born and with tubes. If I move the marker in the attached picture, should I be able to plug it into a US standard outlet without frying it?
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Yes, it would appear so. Europe used 50Hz versus our 60Hz, but I don’t think that will matter in this application.
However, before plugging it in, I would use some sort of current-limiting mechanism in the power line.
http://antiqueradio.org/dimbulb.htm
The capacitors may be bad, so check those too:
This looks like another good site:
I’ve wanted to restore an old radio for some time now, but that’s pretty far down on the priority list.
With just the picture it is hard to tell,but those settings could be for tube grid voltages to handlle diffe re nt tubes.
At a minimum use a variac tio SLOWLY raise the power. But I would check th caps first. Old capps go bad andd frequently need to be replacced before old electronics can be safelly operated.
Do we have a variable AC power supply at the space I can use for this?
Yes the space should have several variable transformers, courtesy of Fred and his warehouse of wonder.
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Use the 127V tap for slightly longer tube life. The 115V tap will give maximum performance with slightly lower tube life.
The internal wiring and electrolytic caps need to be inspected before ANY power is applied.
RISK OF SHOCK: Beware the possibility of a hot chassis! Many wooden and bakelite case radios have an inner metal chassis that is floating at unknown potential.
The higher the frequency, the less inductance is needed so it’s actually the 50Hz areas that have the heavier transformers. A 60Hz transformer will saturate before the rated load current on 50Hz and would need to be oversized to compensate. You’re good.
Of course, this rule doesn’t extend forever to allow the use of any given transformer on an arbitrarily large frequency…once the frequency becomes large, the skin effect cuts your VA capacity unless the transformer is wound with stranded or even Litz wire. Inherent inductance may devour the input altogether, resulting in overheating. (See pulse transformers in SMPSes for examples of shorter than expected stranded wire windings for high frequency operation)