I have bought around 100 OG3 tubes over the years and I would say that about 25% of them have been duds, mostly from gas loss but some with shorted cathodes and similar manufacturing errors. That said I have never had an OG3 fail after it comes into my hands, as is common with the 6909 and 6910. Apparently once the tubes are rescued from whatever corrosive government surplus warehouse they were stockpiled in in Russia, they hold up alright. The OG7 seems to have about the same failure rate as the OG3, though I have had one of these tubes fail in storage and I have never had an OG3 fail in storage The OG4 is rock solid, I have never had one fail, and very few of them show up from Russia with defects it seems. The more exotic Russian high-speeds (the OG8 and A106 mainly) seem to have extremely high failure rates and should be avoided by everyone except the dekatron completionist. Every single OG8 I have bought, from multiple sellers over the past five years, has been defective except for one. The A108 and A109 appear to have about a 10% defect rate from the factory based on the lots I have bought, but don't seem to fail in storage; at least I have never had an A108 or A109 fail on the shelf and I have a number of them.
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.
