Hi Alex
I've only used the IN13 (the one with the primer electrode) and they all
did as you described initially (despite the primer). I wrote the
microcontroller code to repeatedly sweep the tube current up and down
over about a second and left a batch of 8 running continuously. I think
it was several days before the "worst" tubes started to behave
correctly. Rinse and repeat until my purchase (a few dozen only) were
nearly all working. I have a couple that I couldn't unstick. I only
used a modest overcurrent at the top end. Since then the seven I have
in service (a "Jon Ellis" giant 7 segment clock) have operated without
fault. I don't know if the sweeping was an effective method or whether
it was just the exposure time.
http://www.sgitheach.org.uk/ss.html
Grahame
On 05/01/2013 09:54, Alex wrote:
Hi guys,
I have been stock piling bar-graph tubes for a while now due to
their relatively cheap price and potential for interesting looking
clocks or other animated displays.
Due to a few being smashed in a recent shipment I decided to sit down
and work through testing all 450 or so IN-9's that I have to see what
they are like.
Now, the first interesting point is that it seems that the white
topped IN-9 can be either Neon or Argon, it seems most of mine are
Argon which is quite annoying as the neon is a much richer red! I
actually paid a bit more for a couple of purple topped argon tubes
assuming them to be a lovely purple colour hence I was disappointed to
find they are identical to about 70% of my conventional IN-9's (and
badly cathode poisoned)!
This brings me to the second point and a quick question, has anyone
got any advice on getting these things to behave a bit better, some
have fairly epic cathode poisoning with the glow starting in the
middle or snapping to / hugging the other end or making large jumps up
the tube. Are these things usually quite awful or have I just got bad
batches? I have tried burning some in at upto about 40mA which has
resolved some of the minor issues but on some seems to make them even
more keen to glow from the other end...
I have a few hundred IN-13's to test as well soon and am just hoping
they are not as bad as these have turned out to be...
Any advice on these tubes would be appreciated, hopefully a 64 channel
VU meter will follow before long ;-)
- Alex
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