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The Thyratron

thyratron

CONFIDENTIAL

October 19, 1942

Officer in Charge
Naval Ordnance Laboratory
Washington Naval Yard
Washington, D. C.

Attention: Mr. L. R. O'Neill

Dear Sir:

In accordance with the request of your Mr. R. C. Green by long distance telephone on Saturday, October 17, 1942, we are shipping tomorrow by parcel post, four miniature thyratrons developed by the NCR Company for special research use and four miniature thyratrons made by Hygrade Sylvania Corporation under our direction.

The NCR type tube has approximately the following characteristics:

  • Heater - 3.2 volts AC
  •           .6 amperes
  •          1.9 watts
  • Plate votage = +125 volts
  • Grid ignition mº = -12.5 volts
  • Grid current (tube conducting) = 150 µ amp
  •           (with -100 volts applied through 1/2 meg resistor)
  • Maximum anode current = 25 ma
  • Anode-cathode drop = 16 volts
  • Grid-anode test breakdown voltage = 400 volts
  •           Cgp = 1.3 µµfd
  •           Cgk = 3.5 µµfd
  •           Cpk = 1.6 µµfd
  •           Base = bakelite, plugs into amphenol tpe 848
  • Envelope = glass, 2-7/32 long by 25/32" diameter

The Sylvania tube has approximately the following characteristics:

  • Heater - 2.5 volts AC
  •           .615 amperes
  •          1.53 watts

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This document used with permission of the NCR Archive at Dayton History

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Latest update  August 2, 2009

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As Joseph Desch states in his interview for the Smithsonian, early in the war his lab produced, by hand, all of the thyratron tubes used for contracts for defense work. By mid-1942 this task had become nearly impossible to fulfill and the lab looked elsewhere for production. This document is a description of the specifications sent to the Sylvania Company for production.

Read more about thyratrons
Thyratrons at Wikipedia