If you have happy memories of shopping at Radio Shack stores, you no doubt got parts vacuum sealed on cardboard.
Often these were industrial surplus, and if you didn’t buy today, a fresh resupply may never come back to the store.
These are from OLSON stores that started up as a Radio Shack clone in Akron, Ohio.
The Nixies are surplus NOS NEC CD66. One of my all time favorites, with unique horizontal “wire frame” Anodes. Very cool!
KSBN (1230 kHz, "News Radio KBNW") is a news/talk AM radio station licensed to serve Spokane, Washington. The station is currently owned by KSBN Radio, Inc.,consisting of the gun rights group Second Amendment Foundation and its affiliate Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The station broadcasts at 1230 kHz with a power of 1,000 watts day and night, from a transmitter tower located on top of the Delaney Building in Downtown Spokane.
My beloved Panasonic CT-101 fell off the bench!
The hard styrene case shattered.
Should I take it to eWaste or buy some glue?
Originally developed for 1970s Professional ENG (Electronic News Gathering) television cameras as a high resolution viewfinder, the 40*B4 family found applications in personal televisions and later in early 1980s for consumer “home video” cameras.
40mm diagonal, faceplate is 35 x 30 mm, Max overall length is 120mm.
scan coils attached in this example.
Here’s one of the oldest Nixie displays in my collection.
Reminds me of similar Haydu Bros Nixie tubes made around the time Burroughs bought them.
Surprisingly, this one still works, although it needs a bit of clean up (obviously not a long life mercury dosed device)
The label suggests it was a military electronics part, but what did all those letters mean?
Comments Welcome!
IN18 Russian Nixie, 40mm digits,
the largest I have in my collection. A four digit clock is in the design phase, after vacation and completion of smaller six digit clocks already underway.
Z566M German WF (RFT) Nixie, 30mm digits,
and Red filter coating. I only have one so far, not enough to build anything useful (I don’t like one digit clocks) There were some of these available with clear glass.
Has anyone used these in their own designs?
34 13 55 N 118 04 25 W
Most likely a Ham bands Yagi at the top.
Local Police stations usually have Ham gear for emergencies.
This facility is located where Ca 2 (Glendale Freeway also called Angeles Crest Freeway) intersects with Ca 134 (Ventura Freeway)
Off on an annual vacation today!
So my basement lab is empty…
A task this morning was to fire off a new Digikey parts order.
Last night I sent a new PCB design off to OSH Park, our local PCB batcher, for the next chapter in my Nixie Clock journey.
Will be back at it after the vacation!
From time to time the planes leaving PDX heading west, and we get a glimpse of the Stonehenge radio tower on Healy Heights (aka West Hills)
Much progress tonight, added in an RTC and now sending digit numbers to the correct Panaplex windows.
The Eagle-eyed will notice that the right most digit is no longer clear like the others.
I did something wrong last evening and when I came home from dinner that digit was damaged.
My bad… I let too much current pass while I had deliberately stalled the MUX action.
So hard lesson for me… Don’t run the Panaplex at 600% anode current for a few hours.
I’m now looking for a replacement device. These are more rare (and costly) than Nixie tubes!
You know that I am called the Count
Because I really love to count
Sometimes I sit and count all day
But sometimes I get carried away
Sesame Street
I’ve fixed a wiring error on the protoboard. Mapped all the Panaplex segments to binary data. Compiled arrays of bits to form numerals. Added a quick test routine to display one digit and run through all numerals. A lot more work making these fonts, Nixies come pre-made from the factory.
Much closer to a “Not Really A Nixie” Clock!
BTW, as these are MUX’d neon displays there’s a “keep alive” cathode below the right digit window. This will be covered up by a piece of black electrical tape.
More of an Electrify America puzzle than the eTron.
I’m charging again at the same station (and same vehicle)
Charging drops at around 80%, about when the charge rate should drop to finish going to 100%
Has happened twice this past week or two.
I unplug and start a new session. Was charging at around 88KW first session, now charging at 44KW.
Anyone else run into this glitch?
Tonight I got my latest clock build to light up!
These are neon indicators called Panaplex
The numerals are made of segments, like other display technologies (LED, LCD, VFD)
The three displays are MUX’d, and segments are bussed together.
I have the high voltage (175V) anodes sequenced, at about 300Hz, although this will decrease as the MCU steals cycles to format the digit data. A lot more code to write to make it into a clock.
Next step is sending unique segment data to each digit.
What do you think? Is this “almost a Nixie clock”?
The result is a compact assembly, typical for a 1960s build, but…
Good luck repairing these if an IC driver fails!
Had these for a while and not yet thought of a project.
Perhaps build a “Steam Punk” style Nixie clock with these little modules?
What would you do with them?
Charging my eTron and have some cool neighbors at EA this morning!
WAYMO Ojai minivans charging.
Michigan plates, here in Portland, OR for field trials with a human driver behind the wheel.
My friend and I did a Nixie swap. He did a teardown of a Fluke bench DVM, which had been hacked quite a bit.
One of the B5870 Nixies had “thin wires coming out of the base” - was it a mod?
Looks to me as if a previous repair needed a similar Nixie tube, and someone made this to fit.
Or, someone was modding the unit and wanted to add access to the dp symbols, which had been trimmed off.
Either way the Nixie in question works!
The four added on wires are DPL, DPR, K6, and A. (this tube has a second Anode wire, so not sure why the bodge wire was added, or why K6 was already snipped off?)
The new wires were covered with epoxy glue, and when I got the factory base cap had been placed on, but not glued.
The work was well done, someone put some effort in to this project.
Comments Welcome!
Progress with our 3D Printer! Newest tool and a steep learning curve over the last three weeks.
Here are a couple of 3D printed covers that replace the factory lids supplied with these Hammond brand enclosures.
Took a few tries to get this far. New to 3D printing tools, and learning the cloud based “TinkerCAD”. Not really an engineering design tool, these parts had to be tweaked and reprinted.
Quite pleased with the first round prints.
Broke one IN-16 Nixie along the way. The Nixie tubes are direct soldered to PCBs that I completed and tested last month.
Next phase is to convert the protoboard electronics to a suitable PCB for this project.
What do you think? Comments welcome!
Did I land a great Nixie deal? Nine Burroughs “Super” tubes (B6091) for $349?
Well, no. The nine Nixies were rotted out, probably salt water corrosion, from an eBay seller on the Florida coast.
Of the nine, three were “Air tubes” and rusted into their sockets. Six lit up but had a lot of poisoned cathodes. Possible to fix? All Pins corroded.
This deal went bad. I had to open a complaint with eBay Corp. Finally got a 100% refund.
The seller said “seller doesn’t accept returns”. Then said “Buyer has to pay the return shipping”.
I boxed up the whole thing and sent it back, got a prompt 100% refund from eBay Corp.
Will the seller flip it back on eBay? Or, do the right thing and take it to eWaste?
Caveat Emptor!
Been thinking about this for, well, since COVID. A Nixie clock with large tubes.
To help the dream come true I’m working on an IN-18 Concept. Four tubes on a minimalist box.
What do you think?