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RE: Military tubes and capacitors and other components

Hmmm...
OK, I have to throw my 2 cents in here.
Use of sole source contracts can and was done to purchase electronics parts for various reasons. The simple answer of "lowest bidder" does not aptly apply in this case.
Al is correct and so is Tubos. There were some tubes made specifically for a certain application and evolved from lesser (sp?) performance family members = 6384 from the 6AR4/6098 as an example. Using almost any JAN tube as an example, the JAN version wouldn't have been made using different components or metalurgical recipies than it's commercial version. (I have noticed though on some 9-pin JAN tubes that the mica used is a thicker layering). The difference that comes into play with JAN tubes is the mil-spec data that was the guide when the contract was let. Those specs are available and are not classified. (They do make good reading - especially the 6384 ones!) Those specs are very detailed and the post-production random lot inspections dictated that the tubes be built right - or the run could be rejected = a large loss for the producer. This might imply that quality control was of a higher magnitude than commercial. I'm not sure if large scale rejections happened or not very often, I don't have that data.
I do have some data on many of those contracts and we are talking big bucks so producers didn't want to scrap a run!
So, some other questions that arise from all this is how stringent was the build and inspection processes of the commercial versions???
Did the mil-spec data come from the producers themselves initially?
Wouldn't that make it easy for producers??!!

Anyway, from my personal experience testing a type of JAN power tube, hundreds of them, they showed very, very consistant readings (less than 1% failure rate) and of all those I had sold, not one has ever come back as faulty.

JAN tubes work well and commercial tubes work well. So let's all go out and listen to them!!! :> )
V/r
jstrm



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  • RE: Military tubes and capacitors and other components - JSTRM 07/30/0909:58:16 07/30/09 (0)

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