How about tubes

I can’t seem to find a symbol for the 3-500Z tube. And I don’t know how to create one. Any help?

Open the most suitable triode in the Valve library and modify to suit your needs? Just remember to save it in a personal library where you have write permissions.

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I wonder if we need to rename the library “Valves/Tubes” or something. Americans aren’t familiar with the name “Valve” in this context…

Adding the word vacuum might be enough. I grew up with “vacuum tubes”. Not sure what current generation uses as there aren’t that many using them.

“Vacuum tube” would get you a blank look from a European and many people cannot even spell vacuum
In Malay an electronic valve is “valve”, but vacuum is “vakum”

That strikes me as a reasonable suggestion, providing that the “/” character doesn’t have special significance in some operating system, and it doesn’t trigger undesirable behavior when doing searches.

I suspect it’s a small community who are actively working with tubes/valves, and the majority of them are aware of both terms, so renaming the library would affect a minority within a minority. (From monitoring the chatter in a few audio and electronics discussion groups, my impression is that a larger proportion of Europeans have current hands-on experience with valves/tubes than Americans do.)

Even hazy awareness of vacuum tubes is fading. When I tell people that “I first learned electronics on radios that glowed in the dark”, fewer than half of them get the joke - even among those over 50. My son had my Dynaco PAS-3 and Stereo 70 with him at college 15 years ago. He removed the outer perforated metal shroud from the power amp and had the thing prominently displayed on the shelf above his desk. Friends would watch with fascination as the tubes lit up, and sound level ramped up, when power was applied. C’mon, guys, is it really THAT interesting?

Dale

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If you ask me those lightbulbs should be in the library “obsolete parts” (Although, if they are gathered together in a separate library it’s easier to completely remove them from my system), but that is not why I respond.

Creating new parts or modifying old parts into new one’s is a very simple task in KiCad.
If you are already reasonably familiar with the rest of KiCad, then the first part will take about an hour (if it is not something overly complex). But more importantly, If you’ve designed / modified a handful of parts yourself, then the next one can often be done in 5 minutes or so, and is often faster than searching for that part on the 'net.

2023-11-15 Edit: The link to the “Getting started” manual became a "Popular link* after 50 hits but was also broken. So here is a new link:

I’m from Europe and I knew only “vacuum tube” until now :slight_smile:

OK, but I want my “Röhren” back.
Especially the term “Magisches Auge” :laughing:

Non-EU European here…
Many years ago worked with a (small FM-CW radar) klystron made by “English Electric Valve Co.”, That was the first time I connected the expression “valve” with those glass bottles having a bunch of electrical connections into a vacuum.

Vacuum tubes are far from being obsolete for high power at high frequencies, like pulsed radar or the HF-generation at the LHC.
For low power, yes, they are not really necessary anymore. Has anyone ever seen a SMD - vacuum tube? :slight_smile:

No, but I have seen disembowelled tubes turned into USB-Sticks. Really nice especially when glowing in the dark …

We are not allowed to rename libs until release of version 6 :wink: (This was the decision by the lead devs.)

If you want to rename it then create an issue over at github and mark it “prebooked_for_v6”.

To be honest a name like Valves_Tubes would work.
Or we add the word Tube in the description of the lib.

OK, but I want my “Röhren” back.
Especially the term “Magisches Auge”

You looking for EM84? They live upstairs… Bitte zwei mal lauten! :smiley:

Its EM34/35 ! And you mean “läuten” ?! :smile:

Yes, “läuten”… no umlauts on my keyboard! :smile: And by the way EM84 too, see http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0079.htm

Sure the EM34 looks nicer: https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_em34.html

But still popular in the audiophile world, so a lot of people making PCBs for them.

Just to be clear, I don’t feel strongly about this. As an American living in Ireland, I’ve had to learn to be ambidextrous. :wink:

FWIW, about 20% of the boards I’ve done with Kicad have had tube sockets on them…

Here you have a point. I always forget about those people who need an amplifier to “sound good”. (And look good and pricey, with all those prominently displayed and therefore completely unshielded tubes.) I prefer linear amplifiers. :slight_smile:

20%, that’s a lot. Those 20% are 100% more than I have.:blush:

I can’t find anything suitable. This ‘valve’ is a simple, directly heated triode. It has a cap for the plate connection. A five pin base, two of which are filament and the other three are grid, in parallel.

Can someone create this for me and upload or email it? And tell me how to install it into my library?

First let’s make sure you mean ‘symbol’ the thing used in the schematic and not footprint, the part that is used for the pcb.

Second, can you at least provide a link to the datasheet?