I had seen that article before, but its significance to several of my interests hadn't really sunk in. Recently I have become more and more obsessed with power supplies and time bases. My father-in-law was an accomplished engineer. After retirement he sold various electronic gadgets, one of which was a small mains-powered photographic timer. I was amazed when he showed me inside one to see no chips and no transformer. So when I my interest in this stuff started, I was intrigued that I couldn't find any power supplies like the one he had used. Yet here it is. Furthermore, the guy is using the mains frequency as a time-base, something I am very interested in doing, since my current project is also mains-powered.
His article is very thorough, and this just got added to my to-do list of future projects, which is ever-increasing. I also want to use Osmond to design some simple PCBs on the Mac - I am interested in producing PCBs that are themselves a work of art (as far as I can make them), and I think this would be a great project for that. The more interesting things I can squeeze into one project, the more likely I am to work on it. On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 11:37:54 AM UTC-4, Paul Andrews wrote: > > That is a one tube clock. You don't need to switch the anode. > > On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 10:43:20 AM UTC-4, gregebert wrote: >> >> Switching the anodes is what multiplexing does, the advantage being that >> you can share the cathode logic across several tubes. But with savings, >> there is also a hidden cost: You must run the anode current higher for >> multiplexed operation versus direct-drive. If the tube is specifically >> designed to support higher peak-current for multiplexing, then there's >> minimal risk; I recall some Burroughs tubes state in the datasheet not to >> use multiplexing. >> >> I've done a number of clock designs, all of them direct-drive. Cost is a >> secondary concern; maximizing the life of the almost- irreplaceable nixie >> tube is the overriding goal. With direct-drive, you dont need to switch the >> anode. However, I have some designs that use anode current-regulators which >> is basically a switch that is not fully-on. >> >> Ghosting only occurs with a muliplexed display, so if you are concerned >> about it, be sure that your design has programmable blanking-time, >> refresh-rate, and on-time. You will have to experiment to get the best >> results. >> > -- 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 neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/5ecda83f-7733-4737-a560-c766c8086a09%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
