Re: [neonixie-l] 6844A saga

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 09:34:56 -0700 

Personally, I am also a fan of the orange glow with no mercury :) Jens

On 3/23/2017 9:59 AM, chuck richards wrote:

I too have a rather long 6844A saga to tell!

Back in 2010 I built a 6844A clock.  It works fine, the tubes are
fine.  They do not have mercury, therefore the color is more
orange with no blue outline.  This clock has a toggle switch on the
front
to shut off the readouts.  I only run the tubes when I want to see
them,
otherwise they stay dark.

This clock keeps the best time of any of them.
It's a free-running clock, not connected to any time synching source
such
as WWVB or GPS.  It holds up the correct time within about +/- 1
second per year.

The biggest problem I had with the 6844s was with the sockets.
There is a certain type of socket which very easily cracks the glass
from way too much sideways force on the pins.  There is another type
of
socket which has much more supple forks which are mounted in nice
generous holes so they can move around to accommodate the pin
spacing.  Found this all out the hard way after those "tube-killer"
sockets ruined (2) of my NOS 6844A tubes!!

At least my 6844a saga taught me the difference between real
sockets and cheap imitation junk sockets which are no good.

In my opinion, building a 6844A clock with the tubes mounted
in sockets out the front is well worth doing!

Chuck







---- Original Message ----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [neonixie-l] 6844A saga
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 08:06:53 -0700 (PDT)


Hi all,

I recently bought some 6844A tubes of ebay - I fancied making a four

tube

clock with round top-view tubes. In my head I had assumed that these

would

be doped with mercury, but they aren't. However, before I found that

out I

bought four Raytheon JAN 6844A tubes and 2 Burroughs 6844A tubes - I
figured if I changed my mind and wanted to make a six tube clock, I

might

as well have the extra tubes lying around. Another assumption: They

would

have the same mechanical specs, but they actually look very

different - I

prefer the look of the Burroughs tubes.

All of them are NOS.

So, I tested them and the Raytheon tubes are fine. One had Cathode
poisoning (NOS? It was in the original box!). That was easily fixed

with

some over current and it was fascinating to see that work - this is

the

first time I have had to do that.

The Burroughs tubes are quite a different story. On one of them,

half the

digits don't light up, but the leads to the digits do! I have posted

some

pictures below. On the other one, none of the digits light up - only

the

leads. Well, I'm going to put this down to experience - I am

probably not

going to build a clock with tubes that aren't doped with mercury -

but I

would like opinions as to what might be going on with the Burroughs

tubes.

Note that the behavior is independent of the actual anode current -

other

than how brightly they glow!

This one shows just the lead lighting up:

<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z6PoJP4nnLg/WNPjcEjdM3I/AAAAAAAA

AgM/ZNebX4kd688dm4tLHQctcx4gKlWhKQ4VQCLcB/s1600/IMG_1285.JPG>


This shows the digit 3 and the lead lighting up:

<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FqBjwt1dVbQ/WNPjh-0kJoI/AAAAAAAA

AgQ/Y3dHcwgftdcZzKl_Hdq-hV6CSKo_Pf9KQCLcB/s1600/IMG_1286.JPG>


This shows a lead and a 'not connected' pin lighting up:

<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-RxhpDHCFwfY/WNPjmNaOt7I/AAAAAAAA

AgU/Qpm6i0ZEfQg2-FVLJq-dDXwgij2bSoSOwCLcB/s1600/IMG_1287.JPG>


This shows the digit 2 behaving itself!

<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WsXz-S9LjuY/WNPjUwcZxiI/AAAAAAAA

AgI/IqMWFM_bOCI8zIcgPCgBH98EAZQwRW_0gCLcB/s1600/IMG_1283.JPG>

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