HI Nick, These little bulbs are real stinkers and quite different from the very reliable and stable NE2. They have a habit of looking perfectly fine and then, all of a sudden, the illuminated center will shift off axis and the brightness will change significantly (wobble). They can be a real pain!
On Jun 16, 8:02 pm, Nick <[email protected]> wrote: > On Jun 17, 3:03 am, John Berube <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Has anyone ever figured out a way to get the ins-1 bulbs to work > > properly over time. no matter what I do the bulbs seem to wobble after > > some time. I know there has been sine discussion about this problem > > before but has anyone found a solution? > > What do you mean by "some time" and "wobble"? > > Like most neons, they need to be "aged". > > One solution in an article I have from 1966 regarding ageing neon > bulbs (type NE2) suggests wiring a 100K 1/2 W resistor in series with > a bulb, then using a variac to slowly increase the voltage until there > is about 30VAC across the resistor, and leave for 48 hours. Then lower > the voltage such that there is now only 10VAC across the resistor and > leave for another 24. You can do batches of these in parallel. > > The article needs 60 NE2s but suggests testing 100 as some will not > work at all, some will be unreliable, and some will not be matchd in > terms of current drawn & striking voltage - even then in the heyday of > neon use, the quality was not great. > > To be fair, the article was using NE2s in ring counters, so they > needed to be matched well, but the general principle still applies. > > Nick -- 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.
