Nixie - advice from old timer sought

Too many variable to give a really definitive answer, but I suspect that if you aim for similar overall brightness, the life will be much, much less.

Assuming brightness varies proportional to current, you'll have an RMS current that is 'n' times higher, where n is the mux ratio. Since the life likely decreases by the 3rd to 5th power of current*, your life could be someting like n^4 less. IOW, muxing 4 Nixies might reduce the life to 1/256.

Of course if you run them at 25% brightness, then the life is not reduced at all (but if you ran them static at that brightness, they'd last almost forever).

• see Int'l Light Technologies data for neon lamps

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:02:40 +1000) it happened "David Eather" wrote in :

There has been some tensions in Opera company, due to difference in insight, and the (very good) original developer left. Since then it has become 'over the hill'. The latest version I tried on Linux could not even display its own logo correctly, let alone do web browsing :-) The old version (10.1?) was OK. Now I use sea monkey.

I don't know, neon bulbs have been used for stroboscope for many years (turntables for example) without problems. The lower digits of my old home build frequency counter with nixies were often constantly changing. That was TTL and not multiplexed BTW.

I build a frequency counter with nixies in the early seventies, 7490 counter,

Why bother, LCD and a PIC is much nicer these days,

Not if you're buiding something 'RETRO' ... I designed and built a nixie clock when I was an apprentice back in 67.... I wish I kept it :(

I'm going to use a PIC (and GPS) but most LCD's look cheap and have no 'soul' - plus I have a bag full of soviet nixies.

Then why not just use HV latches... the cost of a few extra chips solves your problem and moves to certainty.

On a sunny day (Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:27:21 -0000) it happened "TTman" wrote in :

Right, or google 'TTL BCD to decimal nixie driver'. For for example a clock, 4 digits, you would need only 4 chips, plus the PIC, a 20 pin PIC would do (4 x 4 outputs = 16 + 2 crystal + 2 power). Bigger PIC, add a transistor for flashing dot.

Thanks

That is a good point. 'I think problem solved'

I have a bunch of them too - I just haven't liked the look of the stuff I've seen using them (big ugly PCB - but I guess definitely retro!)

correctly,

(turntables for example)

constantly

I did the same somewhere in the early 90's. Nixies are fun to drive :-) I still have it somewhere. Unfortunately it stopped working. It was controlled by the first board I ever created with PCB design software:

And the counter board:

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:01:44 GMT) it happened snipped-for-privacy@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote in :

correctly,

(turntables for example)

constantly

mm, mine looked a lot tydier... :-) where are the nixies? I had a whole bunch of wires coming of those decoders going into the nixies.

I was thinking if you REALLY wanted a cool display, use some flurescent tubes and make something a few meters high like NASA has as a count down timer in the area where people watch the launches:-)

Here a picture of my old Z80 system dynamic RAM disk...

That saves a lot of wiring!

haha I did that with my "UK101" kit computer, made a dot-addressable graphics display with 16x2114 SRAMs soldered like that. After a while turned on it would get some sparkling pixels - "soft errors" due to the chips heating each other...

The nixies are on a seperate board. I don't have a picture of that. Its kinda messy. IIRC it uses BF245 transistors to switch the high voltage.

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:58:06 GMT) it happened snipped-for-privacy@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote in :

OK, yes, I threw away all that Z80 stuff last year, boxes full.. Forgot to take pics of everything. The RAM disk was cool, it was I/O mapped, in the Z80 way, had auto increment addressing so you could write 256 bytes at the time, and if not addressed did its own refresh. So did not depend on Z80 refresh, mapped it as drive B in my own CP/M clone

It is a fun processor, and it for sure made me a living for many years.

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:42:55 -0500) it happened JW wrote in :

Yep, less capacitance too, just stack the chips :-)

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:49:38 +0000) it happened John Devereux wrote in :

Right,that is why they are sideways, the board was vertical in the backplane. That way the air could flow in bewteen and under the (removed here) grey tape.

How do you jump from running a neon on an AC line signal, to multiplexing?

The electrodes light and are extinguished many times per second. I was thinking of the old fluro tubes where the striking of the arc caused the most wear. I have on hand now more information from a kind poster and I have found there are many traps for the unwary (like myself) but at least forewarned I can step forward carefully