It is not that easy:
The product of pressure and electrode distance determines the striking
voltage (Paschen's curves). It is roughly U_strike ~ [p*d]^2 where p is
pressure and d is distance. If you decrease the distance, then you have
to use a higher pressure to obtain the same striking voltage. The higher
pressure condenses the glowing and makes it not as visible as before.
The alternative - a higher striking voltage with the old pressure - is
also not a good idea since you will have sparkovers in your tube that way.
I am not saying it is impossible, I just want to make the point that
most dimensions found in a commercially made Nixie tube are results of
long development.
Jens
Yes, if you could manufacture new NL-4998 tubes that were only half
the height of the original ones (12.5mm versus 25mm), you would end up
with a tube that had great potential for wristwatch applications!
On Jan 29, 8:51 am, jb-electronics<[email protected]>
wrote:
I do not think that it is possible to make much smaller Nixie tubes than
the NL-4998 which is basically the tiniest Nixie tube ever made. The
problem is the glow discharge, it is always larger than the cathode, and
you cannot make the cathodes too small because otherwise you wouldn't be
able to discriminate between the digits - it would be much too blurry.
Panaplex displays are much more suited to these dimensions, sadly. ;-)
Jens
I totally agree with that but I guess the old machinery no longer
exists so it's going to cost quite a bit to setup a new production
line for micro sized nixie tubes. I can't really see the micro nixie
tubes being used in anything else but a retro style application, so
the market for a tube like that will be very small.
On Jan 29, 6:57 am, kay486<[email protected]> wrote:
Id really like to see the finished watch! It would be really awesome
if somebody made new tubes using modern technology so they could have
much smaller digits, and being able to have them lit all the time,
just like normal digital watches.
Cant wait to see your design.
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