You are correct in thinking that they are INS-1 neons. Your seller would have thrown these in as a freebie as they are about 50 cents each.
Telling how much usage a tube has been subject to is not easy. Quite often if they have been taken from working equipment they could have been used quite a bit. From a calculator you could expect them to have been busy for their time in it. One check that can be made without power is to take a look at the condition of the cathodes, in excessively used tubes cathodes will be grey looking while lightly used ones will be more metallic looking. The tube in your photograph looks to have been used quite lightly or not at all and could have been pulled from a calculator that was not used. Only when they are powered up can you see if there are any issues with the display. The only drawback of recovered nixies is the way in which they were removed. Excessive heat applied to the connections to the circuit board they were removed from could affect the seal around the wire from the internals in which case they could lose the gas from the envelope. Looking again at your photo, your tubes look to have been mounted with stand offs which reduce this risk on removal if it is done carefully as well as perform their task of supporting the tube safely when in position. Some of the contributors here have had IN-14 nixies running in clocks for years without any issues. Value wise, $25 for 6 second hand tubes is OK as NOS run around $40 to $60 for 6 depending on the seller with some bargains such as $40 for 8 (ex shipping) making them $5 a tube. If you are buying IN-14 nixies in the future it pays to go for NOS with the full lead out wire length then you will know that they are more likely to last longer but as said, they can run for a long time with no issues. Good luck with your clock project. -- 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/7b338055-c050-4b12-a5c0-27fee3442299%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
