Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[Paul Andrews]

Speaking for the two power supplies I have actual experience of: My own and the 
Taylor HVPS. Yes they both take account of the voltage rating of resistors.

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[5-ht]

FYI, crystals in glass cases are still being manufactured.
Total Frequency Control in the UK list some in the H/C-26U type case.
See: http://www.tfc.co.uk/pdfs/HC-26-U_TFC.pdf
( I have no connection to this company.)

Mark

On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 4:37:17 PM UTC-5, Terry Kennedy wrote:
>
> On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 2:02:32 AM UTC-4, Tomasz Kowalczyk wrote:
>>
>> I suppose there are two reasons why so many pins are present. One is 
>> locating the right position of the tube - if you skip most of the pins, 
>> then orientation can be located only by judging where the front of the tube 
>> is. If there is only one way to put something in something, then the risk 
>> of something wrong happening is minimized.
>>
>
> In the referenced tube, the entire inner ring of pins could be omitted 
> without losing positive keying, and none of the inner ring pins are used on 
> that tube.
>  
>
>> Also, if the socket has all 27 slots present, but the tube doesn't, 
>> someone might thing his tube is broken, as it has less pins. 
>>
>
> I doubt this was much of an issue in the original application, as assembly 
> (and most likely repair) would be done by people familiar with the product.
>  
>
>> The other reason is that as far as I know the stems weren't produced by 
>> the same companies, or at least not in same factories, so ordering unique 
>> bases was more problematic than just purchasing same type as for the other 
>> tubes. 
>>
>
> This is more likely. Economy of scale may mean that it would be more 
> expensive to omit the pins. And if the bases were made by a different 
> company, the rejected part ratio was not the tube company's problem, as 
> long as rejects were found by the supplier before the tube company 
> assembled the final product, and the supplier's prices remained low enough. 
> That can sometimes be problematic - I was called in to fix a disk drive 
> design problem in the 80's where the drive manufacturer was having a 90%+ 
> incoming reject rate on outsourced hybrid modules which were made by one of 
> the most well-known companies in that field.
>
> Back on tubes, the omitted-pin business seems to be more common on tubes 
> where a) the base was not part of the evacuated system and b) there was 
> already some positive keying method (such as octal base) in place. It was 
> very common for TV picture tubes to not have all pins populated, for 
> example.
>
> At the glass company I worked at, most production was for relatively 
> high-cost / low-volume products. One big exception was a part (something 
> like BC1237 - I forget the exact number) which was the base + lead assembly 
> we made for Motorola, used for a 3.58MHz crystal in TV sets. Those went out 
> in orders of 10's of thousands at a time. We did all sorts of esoteric 
> stuff, like crystal housings where everything but the lead wires and the 
> base / cap seal ring were clear glass. That was for a military application.
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[John Rehwinkel]

> At the glass company I worked at, most production was for relatively 
> high-cost / low-volume products. One big exception was a part (something like 
> BC1237 - I forget the exact number) which was the base + lead assembly we 
> made for Motorola, used for a 3.58MHz crystal in TV sets.

That's an interesting part:  it's a specialty item with an assortment of 
specific requirements, but made in huge quantities.

> We did all sorts of esoteric stuff, like crystal housings where everything 
> but the lead wires and the base / cap seal ring were clear glass. That was 
> for a military application.

I'll bet those were pretty!  I have a few old glass-cased crystals, but they 
look like miniature tubes.

- John

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[Terry Kennedy]

On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 2:02:32 AM UTC-4, Tomasz Kowalczyk wrote:
>
> I suppose there are two reasons why so many pins are present. One is 
> locating the right position of the tube - if you skip most of the pins, 
> then orientation can be located only by judging where the front of the tube 
> is. If there is only one way to put something in something, then the risk 
> of something wrong happening is minimized.
>

In the referenced tube, the entire inner ring of pins could be omitted 
without losing positive keying, and none of the inner ring pins are used on 
that tube.
 

> Also, if the socket has all 27 slots present, but the tube doesn't, 
> someone might thing his tube is broken, as it has less pins. 
>

I doubt this was much of an issue in the original application, as assembly 
(and most likely repair) would be done by people familiar with the product.
 

> The other reason is that as far as I know the stems weren't produced by 
> the same companies, or at least not in same factories, so ordering unique 
> bases was more problematic than just purchasing same type as for the other 
> tubes. 
>

This is more likely. Economy of scale may mean that it would be more 
expensive to omit the pins. And if the bases were made by a different 
company, the rejected part ratio was not the tube company's problem, as 
long as rejects were found by the supplier before the tube company 
assembled the final product, and the supplier's prices remained low enough. 
That can sometimes be problematic - I was called in to fix a disk drive 
design problem in the 80's where the drive manufacturer was having a 90%+ 
incoming reject rate on outsourced hybrid modules which were made by one of 
the most well-known companies in that field.

Back on tubes, the omitted-pin business seems to be more common on tubes 
where a) the base was not part of the evacuated system and b) there was 
already some positive keying method (such as octal base) in place. It was 
very common for TV picture tubes to not have all pins populated, for 
example.

At the glass company I worked at, most production was for relatively 
high-cost / low-volume products. One big exception was a part (something 
like BC1237 - I forget the exact number) which was the base + lead assembly 
we made for Motorola, used for a 3.58MHz crystal in TV sets. Those went out 
in orders of 10's of thousands at a time. We did all sorts of esoteric 
stuff, like crystal housings where everything but the lead wires and the 
base / cap seal ring were clear glass. That was for a military application.

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[JohnK]

Great value in that reminder Gaston; well done.

Another regulator arrangement that needs great care is this.
I have seen instances where the shunt regulator is designed to deal with the 
expected change in current in the load.
For instance the load might always draw at least 70mA and never more than 100mA.
Should the load go open-circuit [or be unplugged] then the whole 100mA has to 
flow in the regulator which in this case 
was designed to only cope with 30mA plus a minimum current that allows 
regulation to occur.
[Back in the 1970s I saw a zener supply let out the magic smoke.]

OT:  but might apply to valve clocks. I have also seen screen bypass capacitors 
rated for the screen voltage and not for the usually higher rail voltage.
When the valve is removed from the socket [or goes opencircuit] there is 
supposedly no DC in the capcitor so the rail voltage appears across it.
In practice many capacitors survive because electrolytics are notorious for 
conducting. [Obviously there are safety margins in ratings etc too.]

John Kaesehagen

  - Original Message - 
  From: GastonP 
  To: neonixie-l 
  Sent: Friday, May 18, 2018 11:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?


  Actually, in most if not all of the voltage regulator/voltage reference 
tubes, at least a pair of the pins are used as security feature. This is just a 
short circuit between two pins that are used to disconnect the output of the 
power supply when the regulator is not in the socket to avoid unregulated high 
voltage going into the load when the regulator/reference is not in.
  It is interesting to see that very few of the new circuits that use this 
voltage regulators do not make use of this security feature.

  On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 3:02:32 AM UTC-3, Tomasz Kowalczyk wrote:




Voltage stabilizers use extra pins just for rigidness of internal structure 
- they are essentially neon tubes, like nixies, but have larger working areas 
to support currents varying between 5mA and 30-40mA. So their model has only 
two electrodes, but as there are more present in the envelope, then why not use 
them as extra mechanical support.

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[GastonP]

Actually, in most if not all of the voltage regulator/voltage reference 
tubes, at least a pair of the pins are used as security feature. This is 
just a short circuit between two pins that are used to disconnect the 
output of the power supply when the regulator is not in the socket to avoid 
unregulated high voltage going into the load when the regulator/reference 
is not in.
It is interesting to see that very few of the new circuits that use this 
voltage regulators do not make use of this security feature.

On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 3:02:32 AM UTC-3, Tomasz Kowalczyk wrote:
>
>
>
> Voltage stabilizers use extra pins just for rigidness of internal 
> structure - they are essentially neon tubes, like nixies, but have larger 
> working areas to support currents varying between 5mA and 30-40mA. So their 
> model has only two electrodes, but as there are more present in the 
> envelope, then why not use them as extra mechanical support.
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[Tomasz Kowalczyk]

I suppose there are two reasons why so many pins are present. One is 
locating the right position of the tube - if you skip most of the pins, 
then orientation can be located only by judging where the front of the tube 
is. If there is only one way to put something in something, then the risk 
of something wrong happening is minimized.
Also, if the socket has all 27 slots present, but the tube doesn't, someone 
might thing his tube is broken, as it has less pins. 
The other reason is that as far as I know the stems weren't produced by the 
same companies, or at least not in same factories, so ordering unique bases 
was more problematic than just purchasing same type as for the other tubes. 

Similar thing goes in signal tubes - many tubes do not utilize all pins 
there are present, but to keep with the standard sockets and to provide 
good grip all pins are produced anyway. For example, there are many single 
triodes with noval base - and those require only 5 pins out of 9.

Voltage stabilizers use extra pins just for rigidness of internal structure 
- they are essentially neon tubes, like nixies, but have larger working 
areas to support currents varying between 5mA and 30-40mA. So their model 
has only two electrodes, but as there are more present in the envelope, 
then why not use them as extra mechanical support.

W dniu piątek, 18 maja 2018 01:20:07 UTC+2 użytkownik Terry Kennedy napisał:
>
> On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 12:44:31 PM UTC-4, Jens Boos wrote:
>>
>> Nice observation, Jonathan. Maybe it's the Americanized version of the 
>> GR4G ;-) http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/data/gr4g/gr4g.htm
>>
>
> That tube must hold the record for "most pins to display the fewest 
> things"! I'm somewhat surprised that they populated all of the pins in the 
> tube base instead of just using enough for positive keying - when I worked 
> in the glass base business, we would have omitted those in the pellet 
> pressing process in order to have a lower chance of leaks after sintering 
> and assembly + flow in the hydrogen furnaces.
>
> It looks like there are additional digits in the OP's 2-digit tube 
> (possibly 5 per position, hard to tell from the picture). If that is the 
> case, do they seem to be connected to any pins?
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[Terry Kennedy]

On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 12:44:31 PM UTC-4, Jens Boos wrote:
>
> Nice observation, Jonathan. Maybe it's the Americanized version of the 
> GR4G ;-) http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/data/gr4g/gr4g.htm
>

That tube must hold the record for "most pins to display the fewest 
things"! I'm somewhat surprised that they populated all of the pins in the 
tube base instead of just using enough for positive keying - when I worked 
in the glass base business, we would have omitted those in the pellet 
pressing process in order to have a lower chance of leaks after sintering 
and assembly + flow in the hydrogen furnaces.

It looks like there are additional digits in the OP's 2-digit tube 
(possibly 5 per position, hard to tell from the picture). If that is the 
case, do they seem to be connected to any pins?

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[neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[Alic]

Wow, nice find!
I’m looking forward to seeing the photos on your website!

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Re: [neonixie-l] NL-50944 Infos?

[jb-electronics]

Nice observation, Jonathan. Maybe it's the Americanized version of the 
GR4G ;-) http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/data/gr4g/gr4g.htm


Cheers
Jens

On 5/17/2018 10:11 AM, SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F. wrote:

Hi folks,

I recently aquired a NL-50944 tube. Its the size of a B-5092. On first 
look it looks like a tube that can display two digits with a few 
possible combinations, but now that i've tested the tube i found out 
that the digits are NOT independant. They always light up together


There is 00,25,50,75

My guess is that it was used to display a percentage of a progess - or 
- to display a value that has only .25 precision.



Does anyone can think about a usage of this oddly tube? Or maybe even 
know where it was used. Its very interesting that the desing created 
the need to make a custom tube instead of just using two regular 0-9 
tubes side by side!


The only resource on the web to this number is on Dieters site, but 
only the information that this tubes uses the B13B socket, no other info.





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