On Saturday, March 23, 2013 10:02:51 AM UTC-5, jrehwin wrote:
>
> > Initial debug turned up a dumb assembly mistake..– I swapped U1 & U2 
> despite the clear labels on the silkscreen. 
>
> Silkscreen?  That looks like a protoboard.  I'm unsure what U1 and U2 are 
> anyway, most of those supplies only use one IC (the 555). 
>

I was refering to the base board; not the prototype breadboard which has 
the 555 timer on it..  

>
> > I was able to empirically  calculate the Anode resistor using the 
> built-in test point and pot. 21.4k... now I just need to find some 22k 603 
> resistors to make it work. 21.4k gives me 2.5mA of anode current which is 
> typical for the NH-12A tubes I’m using. 
>
> Make sure those SMD resistors can withstand the voltage - you may need to 
> use two in series if not. 
>

Gave it zero thought. Will verify.
 

>
> > I decided early on that I wanted the backlite to be purple rather than 
> some other color because I thought it’d contrast nicely against the orange 
> digits. 
>
> And it does - any any mercury haze is effectively rendered invisible. 
>

:D nice accident there, huh?
 

> > With the resistor calculated; I need to focus on creating a Display 
> tester so I can run the display thru all the digits and functions. 
>
> This is where something like an Arduino comes in handy, as you can just 
> use it as an easy-to-program logic level generator and have it cycle 
> through any patterns and sequences you like with not much effort..
>

Good Call.
Initially I dismissed it because I had an “activewire” microcontroller 
board here which was collecting dust.
 
Turns out the activewire board only has drivers for WinXP... none for Win7. 
While at Frys today; I saw they had some Arduino usb devices for fairly 
cheap. I ended up getting a Nano which had 14DIO pins – barely enough to 
drive the display.
 
A few hours later; I had a working Pinball Display tester:
http://youtu.be/kz3ikA82iH8
 
I’ll publish the code later; but thought you’d guys want to see the display 
functional asap.
Tests all the digits and the BLANK functionality which is between the 9 and 
the 0. 
 
Next step is to desolder the current display PCB and build a fully 
populated display based on the latest PCBs. Once I have a fully populated 
display; I can test all the digits and the 7digit emulation capability. 

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