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I've done a fair amount of selenium replacements in old TVs back in the
stone-age(tubes). You can replace the rectifier part of the function
with any suitably spec'ed silicon replacement, full-wave bridge units
are cheap. Check the usual electronic surplus joints on the web like
All Electronics, Digi-Key and Mouser are two retail outfits that don't
mind onesie orders. Surplus Center out of Lincoln, NE and C&H Sales
also have both rectifiers and amp meters from time to time.

The other thing about seleniums is that they've got quite a voltage
drop, part of the replacement procedure was adding a power resistor in
series to get the proper voltage to match the original selenium setup.
An 80 amp power resistor might be a little spendy. You really don't
want too high a voltage applied to your batteries or they'll boil and
overheat. The selenium rectifier added something resembling voltage
regulation to the circuit, too, with that voltage drop.

Stan