Normal operating color for a Type 80 rectifier tube?

They operate with AC on them. They should be non-polarized, Or connect 2 polarized in series (+--+) to make them non-polarized.

 

No. Its a common power supply configuration. Just observe polarity!
There's DC coming off the filament of the tube which is in practice the cathode. Plenty of AC ripple just as if it were a silicon diode.

 

Exactly, That is why they use non-polarized caps in the original design.

Will it work with polarized, Yes. How good for how long, Unknown.

 

90% of these radios used polarized caps. The only ones I have seen using NPs were in the late 20's/very early 30s before electrolytics took hold. And most of them were 2 or 4 mfd.
Its a common everyday half-wave rectifier!

 

Egad-

1. It is NOT a voltage doubler.
2. It does NOT need NP caps.
3. It is NOT a half wave rectifier

It is a full-wave rectifier with the choke in the negative side. Bias for the output stage is tapped off ahead of the choke (that point, being closer to the transformer center tap, is more negative than ground, which is connected downstream of the choke.)

 

Wouldn't that be more rightly called "pulsating DC" ? It's not changing polarity, right?

 

I didn't think so either.

I'm a bit confused about the placement of the cap between the +HV and the CT though.

 

Comment: It boggles my mind that anyone would put power on a 90 year old radio without checking every single component first.
"Live Dangerously!"

For those of us not familiar with the DeWald 610LW consumer radio:
-1935
-6 Tubes
-Superheterodyne
-Longwave, BCB, Shortwave

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/dewald_610lw.html

 

Yup.........

 

Yup squared.