Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition

:Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition
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Sounds reasonable. The Crosley 51 is a radio that uses two type 01 tubes which require 250 mA each at 5 volts. The radio's built-in filament rheostat would knock down the 6 VAC from the transformer to the proper voltage. And half an amp should be well within the capability of a Lionel transformer.

:Sounds reasonable. The Crosley 51 is a radio that uses two type 01 tubes which require 250 mA each at 5 volts. The radio's built-in filament rheostat would knock down the 6 VAC from the transformer to the proper voltage. And half an amp should be well within the capability of a Lionel transformer.
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Disclaimer: above statement presumes that the transformer is in good repair, with no deteriorated insulation or electrical/mechanical damage. Most Lionel transformers were incredibly robust (I have several varieties of them, my favorite being a VW, which is a lower-power twin of the mighty ZW) but they can degrade and fail like any other elderly electrical appliance. If I were you, I'd measure the output of the transformer before I applied it to the Crosley, just in case...

:Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition

Something doesn't make sense here. 01's are directly heated tubes. Using ac on the filaments without some way to balance things will result in loud hum. Maybe there is a modification to get dc somehow? The schematic for the 51 is on this site.
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:Something doesn't make sense here. 01's are directly heated tubes. Using ac on the filaments without some way to balance things will result in loud hum. Maybe there is a modification to get dc somehow? The schematic for the 51 is on this site.
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Hum from using AC instead of DC on the filaments will be present but would not be severe. Current flow in the tube is unidirectional and the plate supply in this case is pure DC, from a battery.

::Something doesn't make sense here. 01's are directly heated tubes. Using ac on the filaments without some way to balance things will result in loud hum. Maybe there is a modification to get dc somehow? The schematic for the 51 is on this site.
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:Hum from using AC instead of DC on the filaments will be present but would not be severe. Current flow in the tube is unidirectional and the plate supply in this case is pure DC, from a battery.

We used directly heated cathodes with AC power in every transmitter I ever worked on in my broadcasting days, both RF and audio tubes.
Lewis
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:::Something doesn't make sense here. 01's are directly heated tubes. Using ac on the filaments without some way to balance things will result in loud hum. Maybe there is a modification to get dc somehow? The schematic for the 51 is on this site.
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::Hum from using AC instead of DC on the filaments will be present but would not be severe. Current flow in the tube is unidirectional and the plate supply in this case is pure DC, from a battery.
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:We used directly heated cathodes with AC power in every transmitter I ever worked on in my broadcasting days, both RF and audio tubes.
:Lewis
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If you take a look at an American Bosch Model 28 schematic, you will find signal/audio tubes with direct-radiating filaments that are run off AC. However, instead of connecting one side of the filament to chassis ground, each side of the filament winding is fed to a resistor pair which in turn is connected together and then tied to ground at the common point (through a third resistor).

It's necessary for the filament to be referenced to ground in order to complete the signal circuit through the tube. Connecting the filaments in this way essentially halves the AC voltage peak that the plate circuit "sees", which further minimizes hum. The tubes in the Bosch '28 use low-voltage filaments (1.5V and 2.2 V, as I recall) so "splitting the difference" would give a variation of 0.75 and 1.1 volts, respectively. This is small relative to the plate voltage applied to the audio tubes so hum will be trivial. As a Bosch Model 28 owner/user for some 35 years, I can attest that the hum level is quite acceptable; and I can't positively attribute all of the hum that exists to the filaments, either, since the B+ filtering is rather anemic, with small-value (albeit physically enormous)filter caps.

Another set that I own, a 1929-era RCA Victor TRF set that uses a pair of 45 (direct-radiating) triodes in the audio output stage, is remarkably low-hum, yet it uses the same resistor-divider ground-reference scheme as the Bosch.

The Crosley stock radio has one side of the filaments of both tubes connected to the chassis/signal ground node. This will result in somewhat higher background hum than in the Bosch set (which was designed as an AC-powered set from the get-go) but it should not be overwhelming. If it is too high for one's tastes, well- 6 volt batteries aren't particularly expensive, and there are lots of Lionel collectors who would love to add another transformer to their hoard.

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And yes, I am aware that the actual hum voltage would be related to the P-T-P value of the AC source, not its RMS value; but the results remain proportional to the AC voltage applied, regardless of how it is represented.

Bill

Did the train transformer have a rectifier and filter caps built in? Is voltage out DC?

Can't have AC on filaments of an 01A used as a detector. It will just produce hum. Might get away with it in RF stages but this radio, Model 51, doesn't have RF stages.

Norm

:Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition
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Just because someone thought grandpa used the setup doesn't mean grandpa ever got the radio to work.

There was a reason manufacturers who used directly heated tubes on ac either used tubes with center-tapped filaments or made a virtual center tap.

:Bill
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: Did the train transformer have a rectifier and filter caps built in? Is voltage out DC?
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: Can't have AC on filaments of an 01A used as a detector. It will just produce hum. Might get away with it in RF stages but this radio, Model 51, doesn't have RF stages.
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:Norm
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::Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition
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:Just because someone thought grandpa used the setup doesn't mean grandpa ever got the radio to work.
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:There was a reason manufacturers who used directly heated tubes on ac either used tubes with center-tapped filaments or made a virtual center tap.
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::Bill
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:: Did the train transformer have a rectifier and filter caps built in? Is voltage out DC?
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:: Can't have AC on filaments of an 01A used as a detector. It will just produce hum. Might get away with it in RF stages but this radio, Model 51, doesn't have RF stages.
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::Norm
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:::Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition
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::Just because someone thought grandpa used the setup doesn't mean grandpa ever got the radio to work.
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::There was a reason manufacturers who used directly heated tubes on ac either used tubes with center-tapped filaments or made a virtual center tap.
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:::Bill
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::: Did the train transformer have a rectifier and filter caps built in? Is voltage out DC?
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::: Can't have AC on filaments of an 01A used as a detector. It will just produce hum. Might get away with it in RF stages but this radio, Model 51, doesn't have RF stages.
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:::Norm
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::::Last weekend stop at a yard sale. pick up a Crosley Model 51 radio and a Lionel Multivolt Transformer Type T. The person that sold me both items said his grandfather use the transformer setting of 6 volts to power the radio with two forty five batteries(today one can use 10 9 volt batteries). Was this person just bs to sell the two items or was he telling the true? Both items are in good condition
Norm: All I known about the tubes is that both were made sometime in 1924-25. Both have pointed top and one has a brass bottom. I think the power from the train transformer is DC? From the answers I aming getting the use of the transformer is very bad idea.
So thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my question.
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