The TSE board shown in this web site is NO LONGER available. There are ZERO in stock, and none will be reordered.

It has been an old faithful for 14 years. Several hundred amps have been built, but all good things must come to an end……..only to be replaced by BETTER things. The filament regulator chip used in the TSE is no longer made….in fact Sharp is no longer alive, it is now part of the Foxconn empire.

The TSE is being redesigned to use a different regulator chip. In the process a list of requests from prior builders was collected and is being accommodated. The new board will be slightly bigger to handle 300B tubes, and provide more space around the heat sinks. More filtering has been added to the filament regulator circuit to handle 2A3’s without issue. I already have a prototype board running, but I expect that it will be 4 to 6 weeks before the design is fully tested and new boards are in stock. The progress of the new TSE-II can be followed on the Tubelab forum here:

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubelab/331038-14-run-tse-die.html

There is already a new board in stock, but full web site ready build instructions are not ready yet:

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubelab/316225-tubelab-universal-driver-board-2015-version.html

There are also one or two more new boards planned for 2019……stay tuned!

Our new address is:

Tubelab Inc.
73 Bottom Ln.
Moundsville, WV 26041

Sherri’s stepfather passed away about a month ago. Sherri’s had to go stay with her mother to help her deal with all of the associated issues. She has been gone for 4 weeks, and will not be back for at least two more weeks. This has left me to deal with all of the things that she usually handles. Those in the USA know what time of year this is. Personal income taxes (ours and my mothers), corporate (Tubelab and G&S programming) taxes, and corporate annual reports all must be done. I have less than two weeks left to complete them, and I am not done yet. There has been no activity related to Tubelab in the last month.

Sherri's mother had relied on her husband to handle all of her finances for the past 20 years. She had not touched a checkbook in 20 years, and had no knowledge of insurance policies, retirement accounts, house and auto ownership deeds etc. These things are real hard to figure out after after the fact. This experience has let me see just how much I have relied on Sherri to handle all things financial. Fortunately she is still a phone call away. If this describes your situation (or your parents) do all you can to learn about this stuff before something happens.

My father would have been 85 today. My 5 year old PC has been acting erratic for the past year. I decided that It would be wiser to replace it than to keep repairing it. I usually build my own PC’s but I decided that I would order a custom built PC to save time. I chose a Core 2 Duo computer from a company that has a 3 or 4 page ad in several major computer magazines. They offered a special deal featuring next day shipment and a fat discount, so I ordered one. It two weeks to get the computer and it wasn't configured as I ordered. I then spent almost 2 days loading it up with all of my applications, and copying almost 100GB of data on to it. As I loaded software on to it, it became more and more unstable. After 2 more days it became totally unusable. At first my e-mail and phone calls went unanswered or not returned, or I got responses like "you shouldn't be using 64 bit Windows". They sold it to me! I asked twice for an RMA # to return the whole PC. Then I finally got to e-mail a tech. By this time my whole workbench is covered in dismantled PC and software. It has been almost a month since I placed the order, and I finally have figured it out (with some help from their techie). It seems that the machine will pass a complex suite of memory test software (the one on the Suse 9.3 distribution CD) for 6 hours with 0 errors, but the system memory is schizophrenic with 64 bit Windows, stupid with 32 bit Windows, and just plain dead with Suse Linux. Two memory SIMMS from a local store and the machine is happy, and awesomely fast too. Now I get to load the software all over again. Maybe I will have my workbench back in a few days. I think this could have happened if I built my own machine as well, but I have built a lot of PC's (50 to 100) in the last 20 years, and I have never seen memory that passes a complex test suite, but fails in normal use.

I am posting this update from my laptop.

I am currently on the road beginning a 2500 mile road trip. I will meet my grandson, and see my daughter for the first time in almost 3 years. I must be back at work in 10 days, so I will have little time for tube shopping. I brought the laptop to work on this update. It will go live when I get back. This is being written in a hotel room in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Next stop, Moundsville, West Virginia.

We are being told that tropical storm Gamma is expected to visit south Florida late Monday night. I had set back up 1 bench and was working on the second. Now it looks like I must pack it all up and hide it in the closet. Since the window behind the bench leaked about 4 gallons of water during the last storm.

The wife of a fellow engineer was killed yesterday while riding her bicycle in an appropriate bike path. The path had debris scattered across it, as do most of our roads. The debris likely caused her fatal crash. Another friend of mine was killed while working on a ladder to remove debris from his yard. The ladder fell over backward, his neck was broken.

Hurricane Wilma, the 7th hurricane in 14 months to visit us, has devastated this area. 98%of Broward county has no electricity, and it will be 4 weeks before it will be fixed. Without power, there is no gas, since it takes power to pump gas. I am creating a page of pictures of storm related damage. All of these pictures were taken within bicycle distance of my house (most are within 200 feet) since I am saving what gas I have to run the generator, and many streets are not passable by car. I can post these pictures since I have one of the few working phone lines in the area. Tubelab, and the SE amp boards are obviously on hold for a while. My work place is closed due to damage for at least a week. It will take about a week to clean up the mess. I have lived in Florida for 53 years, this is the worst hurricane that I have seen. Andrew caused worse damage, but over a much smaller area. Wilma has caused severe damage for at least 5 counties. There is a path of destruction that looks like these pictures that is 100 miles wide, and goes completely across the state.