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I have cousins in North Carolina ...

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "threeneurons" <threeneurons@...> wrote:

It never fails to happens !

... with a load explosion. As load as an M-80 ! ...

That should be loud. I should look at what I type.

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "Dave" <dave@...> wrote:

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "alextsekenis" <alextsekenis@> wrote:

I recently purchased 12 IV-4 VFD tubes (Thnx Konstantin and Nick for
English datasheet). I am wondering if you have any project ideas in
mind apart from a standard numeric clock or a 4-letter word.

I came across this:



which could be an interesting display mode to consider.

You can see some photos of the tubes here:

What a RSS or news ticker? I'm thinking of doing something similar.

Also, Maxim IC has a good VFD driver, the MAX6921. Request samples?

That's a good idea Dave. I think it will come down to setting up the display and have software determine what will be displayed.

I have seen the IC you mention, I haven't looked at it in detail though. I have to decide what is the best multiplexing method for this design first and before that I have to finish the concept. This is not an active project of mine, just gathering ideas to have them ready when it becomes active.

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., Quixotic Nixotic <nixotic1@...> wrote:

I have a few monster 16 digit neon gas plasma union jack pinball
displays a foot long which I am trying to fire up robustly, but I am
having issues with the MAX1771 supply. I can get the fairly standard
anode and cathode drivers to fire up in the approved manner, but I am
reading a very low 135v when under load and about 250v without a
load. The trimmer seems to make little or no difference. Maybe I did
something dumb somewhere. I have a pull-mid system on the go, maybe I
am reading something wrongly.

I think I need to post a schematic and let the expert team loose on
it. My knowledge falls down when it comes to the techie bits, so I
have reached a bit of an impasse on this project.

Sure John, we will be happy to help. I am an electronics engineer and I am sure there are many other knowledgeable people here. Post your schematic, possibly in a new topic.

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "fixitsan2" <fixitsan@...> wrote:

Fixitsan is going to finish his
schematic over Xmas, ho ho.

I'm working on it today !

I've just come to the group to see if I can find an Eagle library file for the IV-17/IV-4 tubes. If not I will need to use the soculator script generator, but I am just an hour or two away from the first prototype schematic being ready.
It is snowing quite hard and i need to go somewhere, but I only have my motorbike as transport at the moment, which makes me housebound for a couple of hours, so watch this space!

I am very competent in EAGLE, we can make a library for IV4/IV17 anytime. I am switching to Altium as it is so much better, so maybe you should consider that too.

J.C. Wren wrote:

Famous last words of the Southern Redneck: "Hey y'all! Watch this!"

High SWR won't hurt

Famous last words of the Southern Redneck: "Hey y'all! Watch this!"

It never fails to happens !

Though this is not the most dramatic occurrence. That happened twice, with the same friend.

The 1st instance was at a campsite near Blythe (California), on the Colorado River. I had just mentioned that Blythe was on of the driest places in North America, and that it hardly ever rains. Ten minutes later, sky opened up, and there was a down pour.

The 2nd incident, happened at his house. It involved some potassium metal. I just threw a small chunk into a bucket of water. He suggested that I stand back a bit further, since it might explode. I responded that I had been playing with the stuff for years, and hisses, crackles, sputters, but never really delivered more than a small pop. A few seconds later, the bucket disappeared with a load explosion. As load as an M-80 ! The real M-80s, that use to be used as military practice grenades, no those 'lady-fingers' with extra paper, they sell at fireworks stores.

If you're ever around me, and I mention that something is perfectly safe, I suggest you add a little distance, keep your eyes peeled, and duck.

Can your nixie supply do this ?

With a little too much time on my hands, I decided to connect a C9 Christmas light bulb to one of my nixie supplies:



The C9 lamp comes in 7W (120V, 60mA), or 10W (120V, 80mA) versions. This one is a 10W bulb. The supply clearly has dropped out of regulation. It normally outputs 180V. The voltage has dropped to 106V, and the current measured at 70mA (7.4W). The FET is only slightly warm, but the coil is somewhat warmer. This is a version of my MC34063 MK1.5 supply (currently on eBay). The lamp has been hooked up to it for hours.

I've done this in the past with a MAX1771 supply, that I hand wired on perfboard. That supply could still deliver 160V. I only kept the lamp on for a few minutes, because it would have burnt out quickly at that voltage.

If anyone is interested in this project the details are as follows...

A pic 18F4620, chosen for it's large memory capacity, receives data at 9600 8N1 which contains ascii commands, and converts this into a serial data stream suitable for driving a Supertex HV5812 chosen instead of the MAX6921 (same pinout) because it is readily available in a DIP package.

Four IV-17's are wired in segment-parallel and multiplexed by the above IC's.

There are about 20 digit transition effects and 10 fonts. Each tube can display a unique font indepenttly of it's neighbours , as well as having a unique transition effect which does not need to be synchronised to any neighbouring tube.

The provisional schematic is in the Smartsocket group files section together with the HEX for loading into the pic 18F4620.

Some of the code is missing and this is not the final 'PIC of choice' so please don't go to the trouble of getting boards made up, everything here is subject to change. However, it is a workable 4 digit display in it's own right and is simple to breadboard

Chris

I've started seeing auctions for Semico CS16210EP VFD driver chips on eBay. Not too expensive in lots of 10, and free shipping. They work like many of the older commercial chips, on a -30V supply, which is handy as I have several dozen -30VDC inverters with center tapped AC filament supplies. The data sheet is in Chinese, but you can glean most of the salient information from it anyway. I did try to cut-and-paste the text for machine translation, but the PDF has a nonstandard character encoding, and the pasted text looks like ,,,@" 567.,,89.. I assume this is a side effect of embedded font subsetting (logical, as embedding an entire Chinese font would make for a much larger PDF).

I bought some and they've arrived, so I'm hoping to whomp up a test rig soon.

- John

That's one of mine. These displays are available in 12v or 5v
versions and come complete with all the necessary driver circuitry.
They are serially driven and need to be fed data quite slowly or they
choke and crash.

They are lovely displays though and I suggest if anyone is looking
for them they watch for someone parting out fruit machines

I recognized them immediately when I looked at the link. These are also used in elevators to provide greetings and brief ads. I befriended the crew refitting a bunch of elevators and obtained several of them. Mine accept serial data at 600bps, they're quite handy. I also nabbed some of the "PID" (position indicator) displays, which are large 2-character 16-segment VFDs (maybe 2" high characters). I haven't figured out how to drive these yet, they're a little more involved. There's a big 0.6" wide DIP chip hiding under the glass, but I don't yet know what it is (I'm thinking of unsoldering one row and hinging up the glass to see). They take at least two different power supplies (24VDC for the logic and grid/plate voltages and 120VAC to run the filaments via a small onboard transformer).

- John

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., Quixotic Nixotic <nixotic1@...> wrote:

I am
reading a very low 135v when under load and about 250v without a
load. The trimmer seems to make little or no difference.

I think I need to post a schematic and let the expert team loose on
it.

Well, while we're waiting for the experts to come along...

Are you sure the feedback loop is corrected properly? How much current do your displays need (including the voltage divider for the mid-pull)? Are you sure that the input to the boost converter has enough oomph (note technical term) to give you the required output current?

Compliments of the season, one and all.

Jon.

Fixitsan is going to finish his

schematic over Xmas, ho ho.

John S

I'm working on it today !

I've just come to the group to see if I can find an Eagle library file for the IV-17/IV-4 tubes. If not I will need to use the soculator script generator, but I am just an hour or two away from the first prototype schematic being ready.
It is snowing quite hard and i need to go somewhere, but I only have my motorbike as transport at the moment, which makes me housebound for a couple of hours, so watch this space!

I have a few monster 16 digit neon gas plasma union jack pinball displays a foot long which I am trying to fire up robustly, but I am having issues with the MAX1771 supply. I can get the fairly standard anode and cathode drivers to fire up in the approved manner, but I am reading a very low 135v when under load and about 250v without a load. The trimmer seems to make little or no difference. Maybe I did something dumb somewhere. I have a pull-mid system on the go, maybe I am reading something wrongly.

I think I need to post a schematic and let the expert team loose on it. My knowledge falls down when it comes to the techie bits, so I have reached a bit of an impasse on this project.

John S

On 20 Dec 2009, at 12:52, alextsekenis wrote:

Yes, sorry, I should have mentioned the picture source. It is from samwibatt's flickr photostream. I also came across a similar display here:

That's one of mine. These displays are available in 12v or 5v versions and come complete with all the necessary driver circuitry. They are serially driven and need to be fed data quite slowly or they choke and crash. Let them settle down and keep the data at a leisurely pace and they are very reliable. There are no provisions for user-defined characters, so they are not much use for making an unreadable Roman clock.

They are lovely displays though and I suggest if anyone is looking for them they watch for someone parting out fruit machines by Barcrest, Bell Fruit and some others. Like this ebay auction here:

John S

Greetings. I have a treasure that I am unsure how to dispose of, and I want it to go to a collector who will treasure it. I was going to sell the tubes individually on Ebay but I was talked out of it.

I have a working Philips counter with 8 of the rare E1T tubes. I am in Eastern Australia, so shipping may be an issue as it weighs 15 Kg. Anyone who wants to make an offer, or who has advice on how to dispose of it can contact me.

Regards

Tom Harris

kosbo_com schreef:

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to me or placed an order for display. I have not had so many, but I have sold them all within less than 24 hours ;-)
I'll reply to emails or update you with your order status within a few days due to hight demand and lots of requests.

I'll try to order more display, so if you have missed it now, I am sure, you can get it within 1-2 weeks.

Please have a look at display there:

<>

They are very nice displays, I'm very happy to have obtained two. Thank you very much for this opportunity!

Best regards,
Tom.

Hi,

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to me or placed an order for display. I have not had so many, but I have sold them all within less than 24 hours ;-)
I'll reply to emails or update you with your order status within a few days due to hight demand and lots of requests.

I'll try to order more display, so if you have missed it now, I am sure, you can get it within 1-2 weeks.

Best wishes, Konstantin.
www.kosbo.com