> I would like to make the Microcontroller flash the colon's in between the > Hour and Minute Numbers. > (I will be later on using this for Temperature trends - fast flashing for > warming up and slow flahsing for cooling down) > > anyway I got some MPSA42's of the 'bay and wired them as following ==> > > http://www.halfluck.com/source/nixie/MPSA42.jpg > > Then uploaded the simple blink sketch to the Microcontroller. > > The issue I'm having is the Colon's just stay lit, they don;t actually blink.
You may have a weak pull-up enabled on your microcontroller, which leaves the transistor on enough to light the colon. If your microcontroller is an Arduino and you're using pin 13, the LED on the Arduino could be pulling your transistor on too. I'd suggest trying a different I/O pin. Another thing you can do if you have an LED lying around is to replace your 33k resistor with a 1k to 10k resistor and put your LED in series. That way, the LED should light when you're turning the transistor on. If you see the LED flashing, that means you're sending current into the transistor. If the colon still stays on, try adding a resistor from the transistor base to ground to absorb stray current. Other things you might want to investigate: does the colon stay on if you power off the microcontroller? If not, it means your transistor is okay, but your microcontroller isn't turning that I/O pin off enough. How about if you disconnect it from the transistor? If it still stays on, you may have a bad or misconnected transistor. - John -- 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 https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
