Power transformer secondary current question.

[viceroyal]

My power supply is running my heaters at 12.6VAC with .3A of available current. I was planning to run 2 tubes and all would be well. Lately I have been thinking about running some indicator LED's off of the heater winding but I was concerned by the added 20mA draw per LED.

I was killing time on Tubecad.com when I found this post.

He mentions that if the tube isn't drawing all of the available current from the B+, then there will be more current available to the heater secondary. This seems like it will allow me to add some LED's to my heater windings after all.

All math aside, is this a viable design option (planning on more current than stated in the specs) or would I be better served redesigning my power supply?

Thanks!

[soundguruman]

well actually adding LEDs is no problem, it's when you have DC heaters on the preamp tubes, and add an LED, that you might start to run out of current and the voltage drops. 20ma is nothing for a heater circuit.