A disclaimer; I took the photo on the decadecounter.com website, and the example provided to us by Terry Kennedy had the same manufacturing errors as everyone else has noted. At the time I wrote the entry on the website linked above, I was not aware that any other examples of this display had the same manufacturing defects as mine, I just assumed mine was the typical defective display that seems to come mixed in with any large Russian surplus order. I will update the entry on the decadecounter.com site with this information, since it appears that my sample of this tube was not an anomalous example of the device. My belief that the display was made in Russia was based on the observations below as well as the linked image below showing an earlier, definitely Russian made version of this display.
http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/pict14/udt3old.jpg # The nipple is mounted to the face of the envelope with frit. I have never seen this style of mounting in the myriad Japanese made VFDs I have handled over the years, but I have seen it on a goodly portion of the Russian-made flat VFDs, eg the ILC1 1/7 , P789, and ILM2-9MV. # The date code is applied with a rubber stamp like the various mid-90s Reflector made tubes available on Ebay, and it is in Cyrillic. I can't say I have ever seen a Japanese VFD marked with a rubber stamp, and I know I have never seen a Japanese display marked with Cyrillic characters. # Every Japanese flat VFD display I have ever seen has had lot numbers, stencil numbers, etc, printed in the black material applied to the back of the display. The black material on the back of the UDT display I posses has zero markings, numbers ,or other such information. Knowing that all the displays were defective makes me believe even less that they are Japanese in origin. It requires me to believe that some random Japanese VFD manufacturer out there was stupid enough to, eg, think that some equally random Russian VFD manufacturer could copy their VFD, yet be stymied by a thin piece of sheet metal. Did this Japanese manufacturer assume that the defect would somehow be missed before the design went to the production floor? That the Russians would not have access to diagonal cutter technology? There is definitely something weird going on with these displays, but I just can't buy that it was sabotage from a foreign manufacturer. Maybe it is completely intentional, and the UDT3 is a failed attempt to make some sort of "VU meter" style bargraph display. The seller on Ebay has unloaded literally hundreds of these tubes over the past year, could they 'all' be manufacturing mistakes? It should be noted that I have been contacted by at least one Russian reader of the site who confirmed that there is something very strange going on with this display. He said that he was under the impression the Reflector plant had closed three years ago and Russian nixie collectors had not seen any Russian VFD displays dated later than 2003. All the other post-90's VFDs' I have seen from Russia have the Reflector factory mark on them, but if the Reflector plant closed 3 years ago, where was this thing made? Regards Richard Kline http://www.decadecounter.com -- 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.
