Hard to tell from your pictures, but it looks like cathode poisoning..... I would try to manually de-poison a few digits individually, see what results, you have nothing to lose. Then I would run the clock at max brightness if it is adjustable, and see if the poisoning returns in short order. If the high voltage is adjustable you might want to tweak it up to 180v.
I did have one tube where the digits faded over a period of weeks, it was not poisoning but rather a gas pressure leak I presume. I replaced that tube and it has not reoccurred. I don't believe the slot machine de-poisoning effects are useful, unless the current is somehow increased dramatically during the effect. The "on" time of the unused digits is just too short. Terry On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 9:31:28 AM UTC-5, Richard M. wrote: > > I bought the pv electronics SPECTRUM 18 Nixie Clock Kit, which, I think, > is of high quality and does not do multiplexing. > > The electronic is working fine. > But I have an other big problem: all my IN-18 Nixie tubes are dying, one > after the other. > > I already bought 10 tubes from two different sellers on eBay (which look > reliable) > All tubes were working fine, but after only several weeks, dark spots > begin to appear, until the Nixie becomes totally dark. > > I checked the supplied power and everything looks fine: (is it?) > 170V without a tube connected > with tube: 130V drawing 4.7mA > power is clean and without any noise as to my oscilloscope > Slot machine effect is running every 10 Minutes. Clock is off for 6 hours > every day. > > > -- 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/43a69c68-a203-4c07-abb4-0787e49d0306%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
