Hello Ron,
I see, so actually what you're saying is if they don't work properly
straight away, it is better not to use them at all. That's what I am
doing right now :-). I'll still give the AC a go with some of them,
and then see if the problem will return afterwards. It's quite easy to
test it
On 12/10/2012 1:28 PM, Michel wrote:
Hello Ron,
I see, so actually what you're saying is if they don't work properly
straight away, it is better not to use them at all. That's what I am
doing right now :-). I'll still give the AC a go with some of them,
and then see if the problem will return
I can't bear to throw away the ones that
don't work, as they might be valuable to someone after the thousands that do
work are gone.
--
David Forbes, Tucson, AZ
Yes, I know what you're saying, I even keep the cracked tubes :-)
although they are completely useless to me, maybe one day
I've not heard of sleeping sickness till now, but I think I've seen it
on a couple of tube I have, they dont work untill I crank up the
volatge to the point where all the others are way too bright.
Like you I kept them in case they can be sorted, I'll put them on my
hv supply and cook them in and
I haven't run them yet on elevated currents, I'll give that a try
later on. At the moment it is easier to just replace the tube and give
it a mark.
I also have 1 tube that shows another interesting phenomena. I can
light up the decimal point with any digit except number 1. The decimal
point fades
Hello!
Try lighting them up using AC for an hour or two. A small sign transformer
with a variac works fine. This will fire the segments that don't light up
using DC, and will bake off the mercury products that cause the poisoning.
Do not run so much current through the segment that it turns
Thanks Ron,
Would you recommend doing this for all tubes or only the ones that
show a problem? I just wonder if perhaps it would be good to do this
procedure anyways, then I can make a test circuit using some triacs.
Michel
On Dec 10, 2:56 am, glasslinger rons...@att.net wrote:
Hello!
Try
Interesting Martin, it seems to me that after manufacturing, these
nixie tubes did not undergo the same failure tests as modern
electronic parts. I find quite a few tubes that have a piece of one
cathode segment not lighting up. Is that because they're so old or has
that never been tested when
Sleeping Sickness. A form of cathode poisoning, from not being powered
for some time. It appears that sitting idle for too long, effects the
surface of the metal cathodes. This effects the work function, and they
light up, unevenly. Its a problem for all cold cathode tubes. Did you run
them
I've had problems with swarf and small cut off pieces of electrodes inside
some Nixies and also Dekatrons, this has mostly happened tubes manufactured
by Mullard. I also read on another forum that this happened to a lot of the
Anita Calculators which used Mullard manufactured ZM1080's, here: *
I tried the trick with the back of a screw driver as mentioned in your
link, and indeed this works! The short is gone. Not sure what has been
the reason, could still have been some metal sputters I suppose. I
don't see anything floating around inside the tube, but of course it
could also be too
Michel, I am glad that it worked for you to hit it with a screwdriver!
I have one Z504S which has four small pieces of wire inside the glass
envelope, the longest one is 3mm and the shortest one is 0.5mm - I bought
four Z504S's on eBay and they all had a few loose wires inside. These only
You just got unlucky. The metal that sputters off the cathodes, formed
crude metal film resistors; partial short.
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Some time ago I read that it would be good practice to let each
cathode lit at maximum rated current for about 2 minutes, I can't find
that page no more so I am not too sure about the reasoning behind it.
If metal sputters are a cause of the problem, it could more likely
show up in these first 2
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