Hello, My own personal opinion of mercury vs non-mercury and the whole business about limited lifespan vs "long life" is that it really does not make much of a difference if you are careful not to leave your tubes on all the time.
I say this because in year 2010 I built a clock which uses National NL-6844A end view tubes. Those are non-mercury and as such they have a very nice orange glow with no blue haze because there's no mercury to cause the blue haze. There's a small toggle switch on the front of the clock which powers down the tubes. That switch stays off unless I want to have the tubes on. There are many tubes of that style, that same base and pinout which look very nice. Some of them have mercury, a few do not. Yes they are nice. On this most recent 2010 clock build it's all in a clear plexiglas case which is about 6 inches tall by 6 inches deep by 8 inches wide. The tube sockets are mounted on the upper portion of the clear front of the case and the tubes just poke right out into the air. A bit delicate, but I think it looks great that way. That clock was built around one of John Taylor's little HV power supplies and I just can't say enough about how well that little power supply works!! Those little supplies are well worth every penny. Chuck > > >---- Original Message ---- >From: [email protected] >To: [email protected] >Subject: RE: [neonixie-l] Round end-view tubes + long-life? >Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2014 07:06:48 -0800 (PST) > >>Hi. I've been building nixie clocks and recently realized just how >many >>varieties of tubes there are out there. I'm interested in larger >(IN-4 >>ish) round end-view tubes. While the IN-4 is visually nice looking >and >>relatively inexpensive, I am concerned about it's lifespan and am >looking >>for alternatives. I've discovered the B6091 and it seems like a >good >>choice, but I wanted to see if anyone can suggest any similar >long-life >>tubes. >> >>Thanks! >> >>-- >>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >Groups "neonixie-l" group. >>To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, >send an email to [email protected]. >>To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. >>To view this discussion on the web, visit >https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/de4f13fb-d379-4bd2-ba32- >acb42efd1808%40googlegroups.com. >>For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> $4.95/mo. National Dialup, Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, 5mb personal web space. 5x faster dialup for only $9.95/mo. No contracts, No fees, No Kidding! See http://www.All2Easy.net for more details! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/380-220141222153758517%40all2easy.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
