I recently saw a post that suggested that the addition of a mercury dopant to Nixie tubes does not confer the protection that we have all been led to believe - apparently the Russians made a study suggesting this to be the case.
Regardless of whether this is true or not, I was wondering if there is a way to determine the presence of mercury in tubes experimentally in a non-destructive way, for example by using a spectrometer. If so, it might be interesting to test a sample of tubes, including some that were developed later, to see if they really do contain mercury. The presence of mercury wouldn’t be conclusive evidence of its effectiveness, but the absence could lend credence to the argument. It would be interesting information either way. I know that some of you will say that you can see a tell-tail blue glow, but I have quite a few nixies, including later examples, that do not show this. I wouldn’t take this as proof that those tubes don’t contain mercury, it could just be smaller amounts. This also got me thinking; if it isn’t mercury that confers a longer life, then could it be something else? Could it be fine-tuning the cathode material? Could it be fine tuning of the gas mixture and/or pressure? Which got me wondering if there would also be a way to determine the pressure in the tube? For example by examining the width of spectral emission lines? -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/55cac89c-f546-46b7-8e30-7b4bfee54846o%40googlegroups.com.
