Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Varmit XL-1000 Conv to GI-39B

 This started life as a Varmit XL-1000 amp from Brewer Labs, back in the 70's. It was a brute force GG amp with 9ea 6LF6 sweep tubes...1 x 2 x 6. Since the plate voltage was held to around 900v, the power transformers had to produce a lot of current at fairly low voltage. Additionally, 9ea 6LF6 filaments pull about 18 amps at 6vac, quite a load.

After stripping this to the raw chassis, I was pondering building it back with 9 new 6P45C Russian glass tubes, or perhaps using a voltage doubler and building it with a pair of GI-6B ceramic triodes. I finally settled on a single GI-39B ceramic triode... stay tuned...

This is the approximate layout I settled on. About 2500 volts should make this play nicely...










Chassis stripped, and ready to go...


I was thinking about this route, but thought less would be more :-)....

This isn't bad, but I was still leaning towards a single tube...

Yep, this is it. I'm going to retain the OEM faceplate, but will raise the cover and front / rear panels... stay tuned...