Yes, the caps can bleed through A)the feedback resistor and B)a resistor I keep across V+ and ground to keep the voltage stable when I turn all the lamps off. However, if you think improper wiring can cause this, there's a high chance that's it. I live in an old house with crappy wiring. The surge protector always says "wiring fault", but everything seems to work OK.
On Jan 25, 8:00 pm, "A.J. Franzman" <[email protected]> wrote: > On Jan 22, 9:19 pm, will <[email protected]> wrote: > > > 1.When the device is plugged in, even with the surge protector turned > > off, if I touch any of the neon lamps they light up a little bit (and > > if I touch them on the common cathode side, the other lamp lights up > > too). I feel no electrical sensation. This isn't really a concern, > > just cool. > > This may be an item of concern. First, do you have bleeder resistors > across any high voltage capactors in your circuit? If not, you should, > for protection of anyone who may work on it. The neons could be > lighting up from stored charge. Also, (assuming that the plugs of both > the surge protector and the clock are either 3-prong or polarized) > there may be a problem with either your power outlet or surge > protector. Either the power outlet wiring's polarity is reversed, or > the surge protector has its switch in the wrong wire. If your clock > already has bleeder resistors, this is almost certainly the case. If > you have any non-polarized plugs in the loop, one of them needs to be > reversed, or better yet, replaced with a polarized plug installed > properly. The miswiring results in the neutral wire being switched off > instead of the live wire, which is a dangerous situation, and can > result in just enough current flow to produce the phenomenon you > described. I once had a gas range with electronic ignition that was on > a mis-wired circuit, and even when it was off the electronic ignition > would spark every 10 minutes or so, because the wiring capacitance > allowed a trickle of current to flow "backwards" into the HV > generation circuit, and it took that long for it to build up enough to > flash over. When off, your clock may be generating a "high" voltage > that is fairly low, perhaps in the region of 70 volts, that is just > enough to light the neon bulbs with the additional capacitance from > your hand. > > A.J. -- 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.
