> 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.
However, it's helium at very low pressure. I wonder if the helium ones can be brought back to life the same way helium-neon lasers that have lost their helium are: put 'em in a trash bag full of helium at atmospheric pressure. Since the helium is at much higher pressure, it'll diffuse back in much faster than it diffused out. Years-old dead lasers can be brought back in a matter of days. The tricky part is to get the right helium pressure back. With the lasers, it's easy, you must measure the light output, wait for it to peak and just begin to decline (too much helium), then they'll be good for another few years. With dekatrons, I'd guess some funky sequence of drive voltages, and watch the operation to see when it begins to step at optimum drive, then step with less and less good waveforms. - John -- 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/AB10F658-A1A6-4882-952F-B69DA9DCE145%40mac.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
