Can I use a triac to turn on/off receiver power to save the switch?

[Retrovert]

Commercial equipment - RCA/Altec/Urei, etc. I like the metal toggle switches which were used on commercial/industrial equipment.

That commercial gear was a totally different animal. I have some commercial tube power supplies from the early 1960s, each of which cost three times the price of a Dynaco ST-70 kit. The build quality is impressive and the power switches are substantial. But we rarely see that level of quality in any consumer gear.

I completely agree, consumer equipment from those days often had mickey mouse switches. Especially when they expected a crappy little switch on a preamp to switch two power amps and the rest of the system's load, it's quite optimistic.

Oh, yeah, powering two external devices—with wishful labels of "500 Watts MAXIMUM"—from that tiny switch is ridiculous. Yet the marketing department won.

I still prefer socket strips with individual switches on them. Combining that with a TRIAC to avoid any damage to the contacts seems like the best approach.

 

[peterh]

An SSR relay ( http://www.ixysic.com/home/pdfs.nsf/www/CPC1966.pdf/$file/CPC1966.pdf )
of the !zero-crossing" type will make or break during the zero crossing, thus avoiding much
pops. The above costs $4.2 at digi-key.

 

[1rebmem]

The only thing you need to be concerned with is making sure it's well isolated from the chassis, you wouldn't want it to fail, and make the chassis live.

In the link I posted above in post #1, the OP used a Littelfuse Q4025L6 triac.
This triac has an isolated mounting tab so all you do is put some thermo grease on it and secure it to any metal surface.

K7sparky really did a through job when he came up with this triac idea.
The triac is $3.32 at Mouser. It's rated for 25 amps and rated for inductive loads so you could use it on virtually any piece of equipment.

Adding the triac and a CL-80 will go a long way to maintain your vintage equipment.

Jef