Basing (pinout)
Bottom view — the socket as you see it from the wiring side. Hover, tap, or focus a pin to name it. Read from the datasheet basing diagram (how to read these →).
Hover, tap, or focus a pin to name it.
- High voltage (B+)
Viewed from below (socket / wiring side) · medium 4-pin · basing 4C
⚡ Oxblood pins sit at B+ — hundreds of volts in service, lethal, and still charged after power-off.
Datasheets
Primary manufacturer data, via public tube-data archives. The model below is fitted to the tabulated "average characteristics" in these sheets; the datasheet files themselves are linked, never rehosted.
| Publisher | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|
| RCA | 83 | frank.pocnet.net ↗ |
| General Electric | 83 | frank.pocnet.net ↗ |
Circuit Codex model
A CC0 ngspice model in an arc form, fitted here to the published anchor — no parameters copied from other model collections. Methodology →
- Anchor
- Tube Voltage Drop (Approx.) = 15 V at the rated 225 mA d-c output; peak plate current 1 A per plate
- Source
- RCA type 83 data sheet, 7-63; corroborated by General Electric ET-T464, 2-47
- Note
- Exponential arc model (I = IREF·exp((Va−VARC)/VSOFT)), not the Child's-law diode used for the vacuum rectifiers — a struck arc is not space-charge limited. One plate unit; instantiate twice for the full-wave pair. Verified by driving current and reading the drop back: 15.0 V at 225 mA, 14.2 V at 22.5 mA, 15.5 V at the 1 A peak rating.
- File
- models/83.inc ↗
Maximum ratings
Capacitor-input design-centre maximums. Two of these constrain how the tube may be used rather than how hard it may be run: a minimum total plate-supply impedance of 50 Ω per plate limits the peak charging current into the first filter capacitor (RCA adds that a first capacitor larger than 40 µF may need more), and the condensed-mercury temperature must sit between 20 °C and 60 °C — which is why the tube is specified to be mounted vertically, base down, and given its filament warm-up time before high voltage is applied.
- Peak inverse plate voltage
- 1550 V
- Peak plate current per plate
- 1.0 A
- A-C plate voltage per plate (capacitor input)
- 450 V RMS
- D-C output current
- 225 mA
- Total effective plate-supply impedance per plate
- 50 Ω minimum
- Condensed-mercury temperature
- 20–60 °C
- Rating system
- Design centre — carries an allowance for manufacturing spread
- Source
- RCA type 83 data sheet, 7-63 (design-centre system); General Electric ET-T464 tabulates the same design-centre column ↗