Welcome to the group, Paul. It's easy to test nixies. You just need a small high-voltage power supply and a current limiting resistor on the anode.
I use a 47K resistor at 170 volts for most tubes. 5900's are smaller and should work well at 140V or so. I think the z5900m is a clear version of the z590m, so the datasheet should be the same. Try using a 68K current limiting resistor and go from there. Some small tubes work well with 86K. You can also hold the tubes close to a plasma globe novelty light to see if the tubes have lost their neon, or for a quick test, but most should be fine. Below are a couple of links that may help. Both sites have lots of really nice pictures of all kinds of nixies. Have fun! http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/data/z590m.htm http://jb-electronics.de/html/elektronik/nixies/n_sammlung.htm?lang=en On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 9:12:25 AM UTC-6, Paul Andrews wrote: > > Hi, > > I received a shipment of tubes (Z5900M) that I want to fire up (becasue, > you know, I want to see them glow!). I have a cold cathode tube power > supply. Could I use that? DO I need to add a resistor to the anode? Should > I get me a power supply of some sort instead? If so what? > > Very naive when it comes to electronics, but not a complete newb. > > Thanks - Paul > -- 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/35d20083-ae52-4741-ae19-10a962a9fc31%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
