RE: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-14 Thread johnk 
A scope gives a better picture of what is happening.

Before you go to a constant high voltage supply you should check the display 
specs.

And, a constant voltage will cause more power dissipation in any series 
resistor. Better check the rating.

 

This is where  others here are of more use to you – I just wanted to be sure 
that you had spotted the pulsed aspect of the DC in that circuit, I haven’t 
played with this device. 

If you were going to sub another supply and just went by meter readings you 
might have been led astray.

 

John k

[This is so like that Watts RMS thing  I tried to get nibbles on. Btw, I did 
send you something the next day Charles.]

 

From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On 
Behalf Of Richard Scales
Sent: Sunday, 14 April 2019 16:04
To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

 

Thank you for that, I think I'm getting there, I can see that the peak volts 
will be higher, 1.414 x 110 v. On that basis should I be OK using a DC supply 
of equivalent voltage or perhaps even higher by changing the series resistor 
value (I have several 170V supplies) then switching S0 to S9 via 5v TTL?

Richard

 

 

On Sun, 14 Apr 2019, 06:22 johnk,  wrote:

A bunch of my email delivery posts are out of order and missing some [for lots 
of groups].

I’ll comment anyway.

Notice that there is no smoothing capacitor in that diagram [if we are looking 
at the same one].

This means that  with the halfwave rectifier you are going to get pulsed DC 
rising to the peak of the sinewave 110V. That peak is 1.414 x RMS.

So, with luck you get 155V that is rising and falling and then a gap and then 
repeat. Assuming the 110 actually IS 110.

 

Different meters will give different answers because of the pulsing aspect of 
the DC. Moving coil meter will show average [0.318 x pk for this example]. DMMs 
depend – look at the manufacturer specs.

 

Hope I am not repeating other posts,

John K

 

 

From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On 
Behalf Of Richard Scales
Sent: Sunday, 14 April 2019 14:40
To: neonixie-l
Subject: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

 

The main reason for not using that circuit is that I don't have that 
transformer to hand though I do have  many DC power supplies available and I 
just wanted to get the voltage right.

 

Having looked in to it in more detail is seems that it's just a half wave 
rectifier which should yield 0.45 x 110 V = 49.5V - so could I just use a 50V 
dc supply instead?

 

I would use a micro to generate the control signals - perhaps with a 74595 
shift register to reduce the pin count - does that all sound like a plan?

 

Richard

 



On Saturday, 13 April 2019 05:15:42 UTC+1, Richard Scales wrote:

I just discovered one of these tubes (labelled as a Dario ZM1050 / Z550M) in 
what looks like NOS condition.

I heave read a lot about from from various sources such as: 
https://www.dos4ever.com/Z550M/Z550M.html and here 
http://www.tubebbs.com/tubedata/sheets/013/z/ZM1050.pdf and I note that several 
articles refer to driving them in normal 'Nixie' mode rather than using the 5V 
switching that they were designed to support.

 

Before I hook this up to the grid I wonder if anyone here can confirm voltages 
and anode resistor values that might stop me from frying the thing as I also 
read that they might be few and far between.

 

>From various specs I have found they seem to suggest a supply voltage of 90V 
>ac and a cathode current of around 3mA. I am insufficiently qualified to 
>translate that to the 170v DC supply, strike and maintaining voltages (and 
>hence series resistor values) that I am more comfortable with.

 

The pinout shows a cathode, an anode and st0 - st9 and from what I can 
understand from the notes is seems that the original design concept was to 
drive st0 - st9 with 5V levels as high voltage transistors were not readily 
available at the time.

 

Has anyone driven these in any way and if so, would they be able to provide 
some further insight?

 

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-14 Thread Richard Scales 
Thank you for that, I think I'm getting there, I can see that the peak
volts will be higher, 1.414 x 110 v. On that basis should I be OK using a
DC supply of equivalent voltage or perhaps even higher by changing the
series resistor value (I have several 170V supplies) then switching S0 to
S9 via 5v TTL?
Richard


On Sun, 14 Apr 2019, 06:22 johnk,  wrote:

> A bunch of my email delivery posts are out of order and missing some [for
> lots of groups].
>
> I’ll comment anyway.
>
> Notice that there is no smoothing capacitor in that diagram [if we are
> looking at the same one].
>
> This means that  with the halfwave rectifier you are going to get pulsed
> DC rising to the peak of the sinewave 110V. That peak is 1.414 x RMS.
>
> So, with luck you get 155V that is rising and falling and then a gap and
> then repeat. Assuming the 110 actually IS 110.
>
>
>
> Different meters will give different answers because of the pulsing aspect
> of the DC. Moving coil meter will show average [0.318 x pk for this
> example]. DMMs depend – look at the manufacturer specs.
>
>
>
> Hope I am not repeating other posts,
>
> John K
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] *On
> Behalf Of *Richard Scales
> *Sent:* Sunday, 14 April 2019 14:40
> *To:* neonixie-l
> *Subject:* [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M
>
>
>
> The main reason for not using that circuit is that I don't have that
> transformer to hand though I do have  many DC power supplies available and
> I just wanted to get the voltage right.
>
>
>
> Having looked in to it in more detail is seems that it's just a half wave
> rectifier which should yield 0.45 x 110 V = 49.5V - so could I just use a
> 50V dc supply instead?
>
>
>
> I would use a micro to generate the control signals - perhaps with a 74595
> shift register to reduce the pin count - does that all sound like a plan?
>
>
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
>
> On Saturday, 13 April 2019 05:15:42 UTC+1, Richard Scales wrote:
>
> I just discovered one of these tubes (labelled as a Dario ZM1050 / Z550M)
> in what looks like NOS condition.
>
> I heave read a lot about from from various sources such as:
> https://www.dos4ever.com/Z550M/Z550M.html and here
> http://www.tubebbs.com/tubedata/sheets/013/z/ZM1050.pdf and I note that
> several articles refer to driving them in normal 'Nixie' mode rather than
> using the 5V switching that they were designed to support.
>
>
>
> Before I hook this up to the grid I wonder if anyone here can confirm
> voltages and anode resistor values that might stop me from frying the thing
> as I also read that they might be few and far between.
>
>
>
> From various specs I have found they seem to suggest a supply voltage of
> 90V ac and a cathode current of around 3mA. I am insufficiently qualified
> to translate that to the 170v DC supply, strike and maintaining voltages
> (and hence series resistor values) that I am more comfortable with.
>
>
>
> The pinout shows a cathode, an anode and st0 - st9 and from what I can
> understand from the notes is seems that the original design concept was to
> drive st0 - st9 with 5V levels as high voltage transistors were not readily
> available at the time.
>
>
>
> Has anyone driven these in any way and if so, would they be able to
> provide some further insight?
>
>
>
> --
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> 
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RE: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-13 Thread johnk 
A bunch of my email delivery posts are out of order and missing some [for lots 
of groups].

I’ll comment anyway.

Notice that there is no smoothing capacitor in that diagram [if we are looking 
at the same one].

This means that  with the halfwave rectifier you are going to get pulsed DC 
rising to the peak of the sinewave 110V. That peak is 1.414 x RMS.

So, with luck you get 155V that is rising and falling and then a gap and then 
repeat. Assuming the 110 actually IS 110.

 

Different meters will give different answers because of the pulsing aspect of 
the DC. Moving coil meter will show average [0.318 x pk for this example]. DMMs 
depend – look at the manufacturer specs.

 

Hope I am not repeating other posts,

John K

 

 

From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On 
Behalf Of Richard Scales
Sent: Sunday, 14 April 2019 14:40
To: neonixie-l
Subject: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

 

The main reason for not using that circuit is that I don't have that 
transformer to hand though I do have  many DC power supplies available and I 
just wanted to get the voltage right.

 

Having looked in to it in more detail is seems that it's just a half wave 
rectifier which should yield 0.45 x 110 V = 49.5V - so could I just use a 50V 
dc supply instead?

 

I would use a micro to generate the control signals - perhaps with a 74595 
shift register to reduce the pin count - does that all sound like a plan?

 

Richard

 



On Saturday, 13 April 2019 05:15:42 UTC+1, Richard Scales wrote:

I just discovered one of these tubes (labelled as a Dario ZM1050 / Z550M) in 
what looks like NOS condition.

I heave read a lot about from from various sources such as: 
https://www.dos4ever.com/Z550M/Z550M.html and here 
http://www.tubebbs.com/tubedata/sheets/013/z/ZM1050.pdf and I note that several 
articles refer to driving them in normal 'Nixie' mode rather than using the 5V 
switching that they were designed to support.

 

Before I hook this up to the grid I wonder if anyone here can confirm voltages 
and anode resistor values that might stop me from frying the thing as I also 
read that they might be few and far between.

 

>From various specs I have found they seem to suggest a supply voltage of 90V 
>ac and a cathode current of around 3mA. I am insufficiently qualified to 
>translate that to the 170v DC supply, strike and maintaining voltages (and 
>hence series resistor values) that I am more comfortable with.

 

The pinout shows a cathode, an anode and st0 - st9 and from what I can 
understand from the notes is seems that the original design concept was to 
drive st0 - st9 with 5V levels as high voltage transistors were not readily 
available at the time.

 

Has anyone driven these in any way and if so, would they be able to provide 
some further insight?

 

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-13 Thread Dekatron42 
They weren't meant to be driven as Nixies, but they can be even though I 
guess that the data on how long they will survive is incorrect in the 
datasheets under those conditions. Just 1000 hours for one digit 
continuously displayed and 2h hours with digits changing every 100 
hours for normal conditions.

There is another portion of that Elektor article which mentions that the 
Z550M/ZM1050 can be used in Ring-Counters (Ronald shows that on his webpage 
too) where they use 250V to make it work. The article also mentions that 
the voltage drop is some 85-115V across the neon element and with the 
resistors used it than circuit it seems correct.

Why not use them in the circuit above, that is really easy.

/Martin

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-13 Thread Richard Scales 
Ah OK, 0.318 x input volts so about 32v DC?, is that correct?

On Sat, 13 Apr 2019, 17:07 Richard Scales,  wrote:

> Its been a while since I needed with this kind of thing. The 110v is half
> wave rectified, does that mean that roughly 55v DC is presented to the tube
> via the series resistor then the 5v logic levels are switching the
> individual numbers on and off? No need for 170v DC from a nixie PSU type
> thing then?
> It's crazy, I studied electrical and electronic engineering in the early
> 80's and seem to have forgotten everything! Thank you for the pointer.
>
>
> On Sat, 13 Apr 2019, 14:24 Dekatron42,  wrote:
>
>> Ronald Dekker, www.dos4ever.com, wrote about the Z550M/ZM1050 in the
>> Elektor Magazine #12-2009 on pages 76 & 77 where he showed the circuit
>> below, which is probably the simplest way of hooking it up, from that you
>> can design your own circuit quite easily.
>>
>>
>> /Martin
>>
>> --
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>> 
>> .
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>>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: ZM1050 / Z550M

2019-04-13 Thread Richard Scales 
Its been a while since I needed with this kind of thing. The 110v is half
wave rectified, does that mean that roughly 55v DC is presented to the tube
via the series resistor then the 5v logic levels are switching the
individual numbers on and off? No need for 170v DC from a nixie PSU type
thing then?
It's crazy, I studied electrical and electronic engineering in the early
80's and seem to have forgotten everything! Thank you for the pointer.


On Sat, 13 Apr 2019, 14:24 Dekatron42,  wrote:

> Ronald Dekker, www.dos4ever.com, wrote about the Z550M/ZM1050 in the
> Elektor Magazine #12-2009 on pages 76 & 77 where he showed the circuit
> below, which is probably the simplest way of hooking it up, from that you
> can design your own circuit quite easily.
>
>
> /Martin
>
> --
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