I couldn't resist asking google Bard this question: Are IN-1 nixie tubes reliable ? Well, here's the answer. Feel free to laugh.....love the part about the filaments. Geez, maybe that's why I had so much trouble with mine ?
IN-1 nixie tubes are generally reliable, but they can fail over time. The most common failure mode is a leak in the vacuum tube. This can happen due to a number of factors, including manufacturing defects, physical damage, or exposure to extreme temperatures. If a leak develops, the tube will slowly fill with air and the filaments will eventually burn out. This can happen over a period of months or even years. To prevent leaks, it is important to store IN-1 nixie tubes in a cool, dry place and to avoid dropping or banging them. Another potential failure mode is a failure of the heater filament. This can happen due to a number of factors, including overheating, overvoltage, or physical damage. If the heater filament fails, the tube will not light up. To prevent heater filament failures, it is important to use a regulated power supply and to avoid exceeding the maximum operating voltage. On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 2:03:54 PM UTC-7 gregebert wrote: > I never had an IN-1 run long enough to get poisoned. Mine developed > internal shorts, resulting in 2 numerals glowing at the same time. > From what I've heard, nixie degradation increases exponentially with > current, so you want to stay as close as possible to normal operating > current. Try running the worst digit continuously for a few hours at 20% > higher current, and see if that helps. I was (briefly) drawn to the IN-1 > over 10 years ago because of the large size for the low cost; I bought a > case of 25 for around 40USD including shipping. Only a few survive today > that weren't dissected or tortured in a microwave oven (yeah, pretty > hilarious but kinda toxic because of the bakelite). > > A few of the IN-18's in my clock have shown signs of poisoning even though > I run a cleansing routine for 1 hour every night. This is most-visible on > the first day of the month for the months digit, and it can take a few days > to recover. This clock has 14 tubes; kinda ridiculous but it looks > impressive. It was inspired by the movie "Tomorrowland", which has a brief > scene with two 6-digit IN-18 clocks. I'm certain one of our neonixie > members is the creator of that clock (that was an invitation for you to > take a well-deserved bow...). > > Tubes that run 0-9 during the day need no cleansing (unit seconds, unit > minutes, unit hours). Tubes the run 0-5 during the day are cleansed by > running 6-9 (tens seconds, tens minutes). Tubes that are static, or near > static (tens hours, month, day, year) run 0-9 for cleansing. > > The static tubes, notably the 4-digit year, show very little signs of > poisoning because I have swapped them around to put the > most-vulnerable-to-poisoning tubes where they run 0-9 during the day. > > I havn't seen any signs of poisoning on Burroughs tubes. > > On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 11:39:54 AM UTC-7 Benoit Tourret wrote: > >> Hello, I have some IN-1 that seems to be poisoned. poisoned or rather >> oxided, as they seems to be really new. it is fine mesh from September >> 1971. >> two of them are fine after one or two day, tree other doesn't show any >> improvement. >> >> I read that I must overload them a while but how many and how long should >> I keep one digit on before light the next digit ? is it 1 second or one >> day... >> >> by the way, as I read that this tube doesn't have mercury inside, can it >> be unpoisonned ? >> > -- 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/61137a91-eefa-4a14-bd84-e173bf4af97bn%40googlegroups.com.
