On 25/10/2010, at 17.34, David Forbes wrote: > On 10/25/10 7:50 AM, zapro wrote: >> >> >> Now the question - why a heater ? I thought that Plasma displays and >> Nixies was pretty unaffected by low temperature, but maybe not ? >> > Good find! I see those gas pumps still in small towns. > > The heater would be to keep them working in very low temperatures that a gas > pump encounters in the outdoors. Neon lamps have trouble striking a plasma > below about 0C. > > Not needed for indoor use.
I thought so too :-) I have been looking at the chips apart from the driver chip, funnily enough they used a MC14543BCP BCD to Seven segment LCD driver! - i haven't yet drawn out the shematic for it, but maybe they did it this way to be able to multiplex the data, and still let the BCD data remain static... Other chips is a single MC14555BCP Dual Binary to 1-of-4 Decoder, and a single MC14585BCP 4bit Magnitude Comparator. The three jumpers on top of the PCB is quite special too, inside the red plastic thingy, there is a gold coated beryllium copper ring pressed in, and this round disk is pressed against the pins when mounted, cool. // Per. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
