On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 2:06:33 AM UTC-8, Phill Scan wrote: > > Hi all, > > Just to introduce myself I am a retired electronics controls tradesman > (industrial process control) with an A grade Australian electrician's > ticket... > > I also have 5 each of the OG8 and OG3. (the purple one's that people say > are flaky) > > I have never seen a circuit with a high enough voltage to drive the > OG8 though, so that will be a challenge. > Threeneuron's Do-Hickie seems to be able to do the OG3 though .. so I > guess I will soon find out if I have bought dud tubes. > > ... > Cheers, > > Phill >
Welcome Phil, Dekatrons are enchanting ... if you can say that about a tube. The OG-8 is a real pain in [backside] ! I had two. One died, and the other I can't locate. Hope I didn't ship it off to a customer, as I was reselling OG-4s for a while, that I bought, in bulk, from Russia. The OG-8 will not run in the DoHickie. It may light up, but the glow will just sit there. The OG-8 is a single guide dekatron, and the DoHickie only runs 2 and 3 guide dekatrons. The OG-3 will work just fine, as long as it still has gas. I, personally, am not a fan of the "high speed" dekatrons. Those are the ones that usually glow blue. There are also high speed tubes that glow a funky yellowish pink. Those are the 6909, 6910, & Z505S. The blue (violet) ones are: OG-3, OG-8, GC10D, & GS10D. All "high speeds" have a very high dud rate. I'm not sure if the gas in the "blue" ones is argon. I'm leaning towards hydrogen or helium. If its one of those two, then that would explain the high dud rate. Hydrogen will eventually react with the metal bits and form a hydride. Helium can actually diffuse thru solid glass. In either case, in time ... no gas, no glow. -- 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/bb6c07a6-3cee-4f42-a330-db36f293b358%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
