I wouldn't use the HB-106 in a clock - no mercury so it will darken pretty rapidly, like in maybe 6 months.
The other similarly shaped ones (e.g. 6844A) are junk in my opinion. Never got one to reliably light up. Greg, I *did* put one in a microwave for about a second - it definitely glowed then lol, but was still useless after I got it out (though no worse than when it went in). On Saturday, April 6, 2024 at 12:08:35 PM UTC-4 gregebert wrote: > Ever since I got a clearly marked 5031 nixie, I assumed the others with > the same shape with no visible marking were also 5031's but there > apparently are other numbers such as 6844 and HB-106. > > I too have several dead ones, and I often wondered if they had been > circulating in Ebay-land as untested devices. I knew the risk when I bought > them. > > I have tried to rehab them, with zero success. The ones that are dark cant > be coaxed to glow even at 500 volts; others have partially-glowing cathodes > or glowing only on the bondwires. As best I can tell, the gas is > compromised. I suspect that since these were early-production devices the > glass-to-metal seal was not nearly as good as later devices. A few have > darkened interiors, which is probably sputtered material due to a lack of > mercury; of those, some still have a slight orange glow. > > In hindsight, I should have tried zapping them in a discarded microwave > oven I found last week, just to see if anything is in there. BTW, there > were a few things I scrapped from the microwave, but I made sure the deadly > MOT was recycled. > On Friday, April 5, 2024 at 9:31:49 PM UTC-7 liam bartosiewicz wrote: > >> Fairly certain that all HB-106’s are standard life. You could probably >> get somewhere around 10,000 hours with a “new” one. >> >> > On Apr 5, 2024, at 7:55 PM, David <nixie...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > The truly long-life tubes had mercury added. If you see a hazy purple >> glow when the tube is lit, it's long life. Solid orange is not so long >> life. >> > >> > >> > David Forbes, Tucson AZ >> > >> >> On Apr 5, 2024, at 6:45 PM, Jasper nagle <jaspern...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> i picked 9 of these up for $90 $10 a pcs for A clock project, and >> iv'e tried searching all the data sheets about them the most i can find is >> one stating long life, but long life in 1955 i would assume wouldn't >> compare well to like a 1960 one ? >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "neonixie-l" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >> an email to neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/F79C6E98-2B92-4DCF-8193-A519270B6324%40gmail.com. >> >> >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/4f425cc5-98dd-477b-ad9e-dd35b9984924n%40googlegroups.com.
