Hi Jens, It truly is 6mA average DC battery current (3.6V battery). It amazed me as well, but the measurement is correct.
What you said is right, the tubes need a minimum current, say 1mA but they don't need that all the time, you can PWM that which reduces the average current to something much lower than 1mA. So although you PWM that with say 1mA peaks, the average current is only a fraction of that (about 1/25 if I remember well). Michel On Apr 13, 7:47 pm, jb-electronics <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Michel, > > the 6mA confuse me: > > Even if your batteries supplied 12V, that gives you P = 12V x 6mA = > 72mW. The tubes need at least 1mA at 150V (very conservative again), > which makes it P' = 2 x 1mA x 150V = 300mW. > > Do you see my confusion? For that to work, your switching mode power > supply would have to have an efficiency larger than 100% ;-) > > Your 20mA seem much more plausible. Are you sure you measured the > current correctly, or am I missing something? > > Best regards, > Jens > > > > > > > > > Thanks everybody! I'm going to wear this watch 24 hours a day once > > finished :-) Have been looking forward to that for about 3 months now > > since I came up with this plan. > > > Interestingly, I am not even surprised by the efficiency of the > > circuit (I had predicted 80% - 90% in one of my first posts). The > > thing that surprises me most is that you can actually run these tubes > > on just 6mA battery current (I had predicted 20mA, so I was way to > > conservative). Don't you think that is amazing? 6mA? The tubes look > > very dark in the video at this low current, but honestly, if you walk > > outside at night they appear just bright enough. > > > Michel > > > On Apr 12, 11:16 pm, Lucky<[email protected]> wrote: > >> Great little taster (or should that be 'teaser') Michel, look forward to > >> seeing you develop it further, must be great seeing it finally take shape. > > >> On Thursday, 12 April 2012 09:50:39 UTC+8, Cobra007 wrote: > > >>> I had a bit of time this week to get the first module working. It's > >>> not finished yet, at the moment it only counts from 00 to 59, but for > >>> as long as that works, the rest is just a bit of coding. > >>> This video shows the tubes at maximum brightness (which is about 2mA > >>> DC average per tube @ 200mA battery current), and afterwards at > >>> minimum brightness @ 6mA battery current. Efficiency is about 85% and > >>> since I don't use resistors in the HV circuit, all this power is > >>> converted into tube power (and a bit for the blue LEDs). > >>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AklybAgVMmk > >>> Michel -- 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.
