In my experience, most of the wear comes from segments that are activated, but the rest of the display still degrades.
I used VFDs (New Haven Displays, https://www.newhavendisplay.com/m0216sd162sdar21-p-2076.html) on a piece of equipment we started shipping in 2000. We shipped 2-3 dozens over 5 years. They are still used. Under normal conditions, 4 digits are used in the middle of a 16 character line, 24/7/52 (except for a handful of spares). When these units come back for service, you can clearly tell the difference between those 4 digits and the others, but compared to a new one, I would guess the rest degrades about half as fast as the digits that are used. The biggest difference is that the digits that are used are dim and blotchy while the rest is less dim and still pretty uniform. We replace the displays when they are too bad (up to the service tech unless the customer specifically asked for it), even though the units are mostly remote operated so the display is not crucial, unless they have issues requiring operating the unit locally. We started replacing them about 5-7 years after shipping the first ones. Didier KO4BB On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 7:38 AM Poul-Henning Kamp <[email protected]> wrote: > -------- > Attila Kinali writes: > > You can tell it to display a particular string, and that string can be > spaces, > can't remember to command right of my head. > > There is no way to turn the display "really" off. > > -- > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > [email protected] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > _______________________________________________ > volt-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] -- To unsubscribe send > an email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ volt-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] -- To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
