A few months ago, at the TRW swapmeet, we got some hollow cathode tubes. Had nothing to light them up with, so I made this circuit. A couple of days ago, Dave gave me one of his tubes. I had since added an octal socket, so I plugged in the tube and here's a photo:
<https://threeneurons.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/hollow_cathode_au_01.jpg> >From further experiments, I found that hollow cathode (spectral reference) tubes need only ~300V to strike. The sustain voltage is ~250V. Max current 25mA, as stated on Varian box. On Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 10:37:31 AM UTC-8, threeneurons wrote: > > . No glow joy, that day. > > Well I threw together this little toy, to throw out a few KV of AC, to > make a few ions: > > > <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-g1WFoBG9Q0A/VPie4ikNHYI/AAAAAAAAUj8/1qp4E0CaH8I/s1600/Plasma_Gen01.jpg> > > > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CrwNczn3kX8/VPifMcnNWQI/AAAAAAAAUkE/PkTQ2dlChxA/s1600/Plasma_Gen03.jpg> > > The circuit, is pretty simple. It just my nixie supply circuit, adjusted > to output 300VDC But instead of using a simple coil, I used a transformer. > The primary side, makes a 300Vpp pulse. The transformer has a ~20:1 turns > ratio. 16 turns on the primary, and a tad over 300 on the secondary. The > key was isolate not only the primary from secondary,but successive layers > of the secondary. They maybe more kapton tape on it than wire ! > > The tubes are not plugged into a socket, but on a conductive platform > (wire mesh), that's hooked up to HV. That green wire hanging out, is also > the HV. Touch a gas filled tube to it, and it will lite up ! It's also > portable. I powered it from a 12VDC source, I often drag along with me. > > > > -- 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/8b316a9d-181e-4b88-b02f-3abb9f80f75f%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
