In this video I decided to explain what a nixie tube is, how does it work and to make its autopsy. You can support me on Patreon: / diodegonewild
Пікірлер: 126
@astrogarage21167 жыл бұрын
Almost choked when he cracked the tube with the hammer !
@markiangooley7 жыл бұрын
I bought a lot of cheap ex-Soviet ones on eBay about 10 years ago -- I think they were stolen when my house was broken into. I was fascinated by the shapes and order of the digit wires: someone tried very hard to keep them from blocking the view of a glowing digit placed behind them, and with some success.
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
There's a lot of magic in the digit order :). They are in such an order that they don't block each other, but also that the wires from the digits to the pins do not cross. But also the fact that the glow is thicker than the electrode helps a lot. Also the shapes are chosen so that for example the circles in 8 don't block the circle of 6 and 9. Usually "1" is at the very back, because it is narrow and so it doesn't disappear behind the sides of the anode when looking from side.
@douro206 жыл бұрын
The radiation source is most likely nickel-63, which is a beta emitter with a half-life of 100 years. It decays to stable copper-63.
@KeritechElectronics2 жыл бұрын
Great teardown :) It's good that someone strips a non-working nixie to show the internals, so others don't have to do that with working tubes.
@nixietubes2 жыл бұрын
Helo keri
@donmoore77854 жыл бұрын
"This is a very quick, cheap Chinese nixie tube production..." "Number 3 will be missing, but it doesn't matter - it will be cheap..." Funny stuff!
@startend71967 жыл бұрын
Very impressive demonstration. Well done!
@migette16 жыл бұрын
Hi excellent video explaining the workings of these tubes, really just a neon glow lamp with numbers and grid DC operation, who remembers Proops in Tottingham court rd London used to sell these plus other interesting bits, this was in the 60s 70s long since gone...they were the days!
@raykdreisatzgehtanders72395 жыл бұрын
Not used in consumer products? I've seen several TVs using them as channel indicators.
@rogerd45595 жыл бұрын
Ive seen them on old radios to indicate when you were tuned dead on also on my antique capacitor meater to tell me when I was near the capacitance
@michaelturner44574 жыл бұрын
I've seen nixies in Radio Rentals TVs in the mid-70s, a single tube as channel indicator.
@RedmilesShark3 жыл бұрын
@@michaelturner4457 I doubt it would be used by the time then, at least, for western consumer electronics. Probably was an LED display or VFD display. Otherwise a Numinitron, which is not a Nixie.
@michaelturner44573 жыл бұрын
@@RedmilesShark This was in about 77-78. and it was definitely a nixie channel display, using a single tube. The UK at that time only had 3 broadcast channels, and I think the TV itself had 8 presets. Also many TVs around that time actually used neon lamps for their channel number indicators. Of course the required high voltages are readily available in CRT TVs. The nixie display TVs were Baird, which was a Radio Rentals own brand. You'd be very lucky to find one now, because rental companies tended to crush and destroy their TVs at the end of their useful rental periods. I remember it been a bit distinctive, and also I was interested in nixies at the time, having just bought a couple of them at the local Tandy shop for experiments. I often saw numitron incandescent displays in petrol pumps in 70s and 80s.
@goodun29742 жыл бұрын
Rayk, I know of three FM tuners that used Nixie displays for the station frequency: the SAE MkVI, the Scott T33S, and the Revox A720. The Scott used computer punch cards to change the station!
@andymouse4 жыл бұрын
Both the dead tubes had significant coating on the ceramics, were they failing due to shorts or excessive current draw ? caused by being driven to hard perhaps ? it was hard to see if the Getter was ok, love these tubes, great vid...cheers.
@golfman92906 жыл бұрын
You got to say, this man is clever!
@javilarg5 жыл бұрын
I love nixies. Years ago I made a nixie clock with russian IN-12 tubes, it’s really beautiful.
@brucel.60785 жыл бұрын
Great video!!!!
@lez78755 жыл бұрын
saudações do Brasil + like. sempre quis saber como era por dentro dessas válvulas eletrônicas. muito bom. parabéns pelos 100.000 inscritos. tudo de bom a todos e sucesso.
@au7weeng5347 жыл бұрын
yay new vid!
@hyperion80087 жыл бұрын
I remember Nixie tube petrol pumps back in the early 80's - very cool.
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
I have never seen nixies in petrol pumps, they were probably never used for this in my country. There were mechanical rotating wheels with numbers (like in electricity meter or water meter). Then vane displays (with 7 electromagneticaly flipping segments) and finally LCD displays.
@teslakovalaborator7 жыл бұрын
Kde ty digitrony bereš....Já mám tak cca 10x Z574M :3
@zaprodk7 жыл бұрын
Never seen Nixie's in gas pumps, but Numitrons were quite common.
@MrOpenGL7 жыл бұрын
AGIP in Italy used also VFD petrol pumps.
@douro206 жыл бұрын
I remember the ones with Numitrons; they can still be found in service occasionally. Where I live they are typically planar Numitrons known as Panaplex displays.
@ZENERVOLTAGE4 жыл бұрын
4:57 Is that dangerous so close to 140V DC? Still confuses me.
@MIW_Renegade7 жыл бұрын
Wow very intresting
@hernancoronel4 жыл бұрын
At 19:17 blood noooooo! ;-) Awesome video, thank you!
@zanimljivastruja75115 жыл бұрын
Was Yugoslavia manufacturing nixie tubes ?
@zorik793 жыл бұрын
Thank You !!!❤️
@markonikolovsk224 жыл бұрын
the ones with the prongs you can also put them i a socket ive done that with a clock i made with nixie tubes
@MrOpenGL7 жыл бұрын
If you reverse the polarity, will the mesh glow? (I assume they work similarly to a small neon lamp on DC?) What if you put AC on it? Will both the mesh and the number glow?
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
Yes, exactly as you say. With reversed DC the mesh glows, and with AC both the number and the mesh will glow.
@MrOpenGL7 жыл бұрын
Thanks! I have never tried using nixies myself, only VFDs. But I find both nice because of their undescribable colours, the deep and warm orange of nixies and the green-light blue of VFDs :-)
@martinda74465 жыл бұрын
Anyone know how the mercury giver works to extend cathode life? Without the mercury vapor the cathodes would have a short life of around 1 - 10,000 hrs which could be extended tenfold with the addition of the 'getter? giver'.
@fungusenthusiast82494 жыл бұрын
where did you get all those nixies? Also, wouldn't it make more sense to order the numbers in such a way that the ones in front would block the least amount and go in order of least amount blocked to most amount blocked?
@electronicguy45503 жыл бұрын
He lives in chezslovakia when the soviet times fell, many people stole from factories soo thats were most of them came. And in soviet times they built nixie tubes very long some even in 1992!
@fungusenthusiast82493 жыл бұрын
@@electronicguy4550 Yeah I know that now, whish I could get some of that stuff. So cool!
@watermelon95886 жыл бұрын
1:14 is that an IN-4 ?
@TerryMcKean7 жыл бұрын
02:12 Cool!... that reminded me of a crystal I got years ago... it looked kind of like a 7-pin miniature vacuum tube about the size and shape of a 6AL5, maybe a tiny bit taller . but the only thing inside it was a slice of quartz crystal held up by the two support wires and contact-plates... ... maybe from an ancient color TV's color-burst circuit or something like that. at 3.579545 mHz.... that's what it was... now I remember I was going to use it in a homebrewed 80 meter ham radio transmitter circuit using my favorite electronics building-blocks: vacuum tubes (valves) 'one of these days'. :-)
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
This one is a 100 kHz crystal. Maybe I will use it in some nixie clock....
@goodun29742 жыл бұрын
Hmm, I have a GEC crystal with gold plated internals,, in a 12AX7 size bottle with 9 gold plated pins.
@TerryMcKean2 жыл бұрын
@@goodun2974 Right on, good'n... it's been about 45 years since I had mine... it might've been a 9 pinner like yours. I think mine was originally pulled from the colorburst circuit of an ancient color TV set... it's freq was 3.579MC, and it definitely made a cool-looking crystal to build into a homebrew 80 meter ham radio CW transmitter circuit. :-)
@TerryMcKean2 жыл бұрын
@@DiodeGoneWild I just noticed that I'm replying to your comments from 4 years ago... wow, notifications sure have slow lately... lol :- D Anyway, right on DiodeGoneWild... how'd that nixi-tube clock project turn out?
@goodun29742 жыл бұрын
@@TerryMcKean , my GEC crystal is in a box of weird electronics parts that I am compiling to send to FranLab. All kinds of strange stuff that she'll likely have fun examining, testing or building with, including some Nixies! By the way, I mentioned elsewhere in the comment field here that I know of 3 FM tuners that used nixie tubes for the display. The SAE MkVI, the Scott T33S, and also a Revox tuner. The Scott tuner actually used computer punch cards to change the stations!.
@hassanburrows85356 жыл бұрын
A bit off topic, but we can hear a clock pulsing in the background, so I was wondering if you have any experience of Soviet era electric master clock systems. Typically found at railway stations, institutions and factories.Love these videos - Big Clive has a competitor! Saludos.
@DiodeGoneWild6 жыл бұрын
Thanks :). Unfortunately I don't have any experience with those...
@hassanburrows85356 жыл бұрын
A pity, but thanks for your very prompt reply.
@Mark1024MAK6 жыл бұрын
The UK railways used to use impulse clocks. As far as I can tell, they were connected in series. The Master used to send out an impulse once per half minute.
@huyvuquang95334 жыл бұрын
Omg your accent :))) its like singing
@3ccdmike2 жыл бұрын
You are a funny guy.
@anindyamitra50916 жыл бұрын
What are meant by gtter or getter?
@ganopterygon6 жыл бұрын
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getter
@rogerd45595 жыл бұрын
A getter "gets" the few remaining air molecules by trapping them in the substance coated on the glass wall what is didnt know is how they activated it. He said they activated the getter by inductive heat, I was always misled by being told it was a special set of pins on the bottom of the tube that sent current into that part to fire the getter. this man has taught me much!
@felixcat43466 жыл бұрын
Very nice teardown, but of course it begs the question why did they fail?
@DiodeGoneWild6 жыл бұрын
The big one was faulty because of a crack near a pin. Maybe too much force was applied to the pin. The small one was probably poorly sealed in manufacture. It has no vacuum despite it has no cracks.
@antennafarmer73802 жыл бұрын
Quite a nice crystal
@scottkennedy77414 жыл бұрын
I like that largest tube at the beginning what is the part number?
@aangsurpiatna22115 жыл бұрын
at 22:13 if you get buble when you drop tiny water on it, that possibility barium (radio active material).
@rogerd45595 жыл бұрын
yes and he is handling that barium with no protection
@TerryMcKean7 жыл бұрын
12:59 Again, cool... I wonder what kind and the CPM levels...
@TerryMcKean7 жыл бұрын
13:58... now I see.... a tiny bit of beta and gamma, etc.... an alpha particle detector would most likely show more counts off of that source
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
Not a horrific level. Just few times above background.
@TerryMcKean2 жыл бұрын
@@DiodeGoneWild Right on, DiodeGoneWild.
@samuelebaiano65057 жыл бұрын
A paaaart to remoooove heeeeeeare
@samuelebaiano65057 жыл бұрын
Some nuuumber on iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitt
@sjusup7 жыл бұрын
Does he not have some real friends to warn him about it I wonder?
@rogerd45595 жыл бұрын
I dont get it. Ive worked with czecs before and they never had that accent. I guess it must be a special dialect from the region he is in?
@rogerd45595 жыл бұрын
@@sjusup looks like his only friend is that cute kitty
@draamirsaud4 жыл бұрын
😃😃😃😃, Very nice and funny english, take too long vocal speed
@ViliamJakubek4 жыл бұрын
When the tube is from your home country...😢 Those are expensive though...
@miszka62276 жыл бұрын
its a polish mera-tronik multimeter
@skyem52505 жыл бұрын
We're you disappointed that it was radioactive or disappointed that it wasn't as radioactive as you wanted?
@robertdouville744 жыл бұрын
Before 1980, was obsolete then, I am old enough to tell you. middle 1970 electronic watches and calculators with LED readings appear on the market.
@edgeeffect4 жыл бұрын
It's interesting seeing this after watching Dalibor Farny doing the exact opposite. ;)
@saitama42193 жыл бұрын
bro my heart broke with that glass :((
@nastukani_pl44656 жыл бұрын
The speaker in the counter looks like old portable speaker from Sony Ericsson W200
@anindyamitra50916 жыл бұрын
Please try to run it on reverse polarity,😋
@Purple4314 жыл бұрын
I was thinking about putting a different type of noble gas in it like argon or xenon
@michaelturner44573 жыл бұрын
To me the noble gasses are more interesting when you fill balloons with them. From the lightest neon to the heaviest xenon.
@Purple4313 жыл бұрын
@@michaelturner4457 to i like to ionise the gas with high voltage to make a color
@michaelturner44573 жыл бұрын
Hello again, I did find a video of an argon filled nixie tube. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j61hkpV4ptmXc3U.html Nice to look at, but not so practical for everyday use.
@Purple4313 жыл бұрын
Remember when you said that neon was the lightest gas was neon, it is actually heilum ;)
@zx8401ztv7 жыл бұрын
I can see why they are expensive displays, a lot of delicate parts to assemble. I did see an old counter that had an odd display, it had 10 etched clear plastic plates stacked, a bulb lit the edge of each plate to light up the etched number. Very odd design, i havnt a clue what they called them.
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
Yes, nixies definitely are a lot of manual work. Those displays are simply called edge-lit or lightguide displays. They look a bit similar to nixies and some people even confuse them with nixies, because they have numbers in different depths just like nixies. But anyway, nothing beats nixies :). Have you seen the video of Dalibor Farny, how he manufactures nixies? :).
@zx8401ztv7 жыл бұрын
No i havnt seen that video, is it on youtube or a company site?
@DiodeGoneWild7 жыл бұрын
You definitely have to see it :) it's on youtube: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rd58Z6idx9XNpXU.html
@I_like_some_BG2 жыл бұрын
And lift indicati on for floor inicador like a old Otis clasic
@user-vc9dz8ve6o6 жыл бұрын
4:02 ussr nixie tube!
@Purple4314 жыл бұрын
This hurts my heart to see the neon nixie getting smashed 5:14💔😢
@michaelturner44573 жыл бұрын
He did say, it's not working. So nothing lost, and nothing to get upset about. I suspect the air got in through a crack or something.
@Purple4313 жыл бұрын
@@michaelturner4457 not sure but i love nixies My favourite lamp A small a night lamp
@michaelturner44573 жыл бұрын
@@Purple431 I love nixies as well. Having got a nixie watch that I wear daily, and a couple of clocks using the things. So if one doesn't work, I see no problem in taking a hammer to it, and exploring what's inside. :).
@Purple4313 жыл бұрын
@@michaelturner4457 ok now i get it 😂
@ViajesConBrunooo5 жыл бұрын
Small one like this ooooonneeeeeee
@ynfe7 жыл бұрын
Hello guys
@dreck666663 жыл бұрын
*14:23** - **17:38* 😂
@kkklogin6 жыл бұрын
u got me there.... and it doesn't matter since its cheap nixes chines production....
@meem93284 жыл бұрын
The nixie tubed on contain helium gas, nothing more, doesn't contain mercury or else
@michaelturner44574 жыл бұрын
The gas fill is actually neon and helium mix, called a Penning mixture. And apparently some nixies do contain a small amount of mercury. spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-nixie-tube-story-the-neon-display-tech-that-engineers-cant-quit “We secured a tiny ampule with mercury sealed inside, wrapped a few turns of resistance wire around the ampule, [and] connected the ends of the wire to two of the [tube’s] pins,” That sounds exactly like the ampule that was in the East German tube in the video.
@Zeph_3 жыл бұрын
Check the videos of Dalibor Farny if you are interested in how these marvels are made kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rd58Z6idx9XNpXU.html
@robertdouville744 жыл бұрын
Old stuff!
@gabrielvieira65296 жыл бұрын
Haha chinis nixie
@user-wn9mn1be4u6 жыл бұрын
:)
@barrettkepler76185 жыл бұрын
Accent is terrible, but video is interesting. Thumb up
@erikburman5306 жыл бұрын
Really? Was the opening disclaimer necessary?
@michaelturner44576 жыл бұрын
Well yeh...180VDC can be lethal, and mercury is toxic
5 жыл бұрын
@@michaelturner4457 My nixie tubes are designed for 12 volts. Also, I could not find anywhere in this video where Mercury would be located.
@willyou21995 жыл бұрын
@ Nixies are basically neon lamps, how does yours work on 12v. must be those new age imitation nixies..
5 жыл бұрын
@@willyou2199 There is nothing new-aged or counterfeit about it. I privately hired an extremely experienced engineer in Great Britain to custom-make me a hand-crafted genuine Nixie clock for my automobile. He used the absolute highest quality authentic Nixie tubes combined with the highest quality 12-volt circuit boards. The clock can hold the accurate time without being illuminated {when the engine is off} [and therefore use almost no energy so the car battery will never drain], and then the clock becomes illuminated at full 12-volt power the moment the engine is cranked. Each of the Nixie tubes are rated to last approximately 10-15 years without any defects whatsoever. He also provided me with sets of replacement spare tubes, so I am set for at least half a century.
@willyou21995 жыл бұрын
@ Then what do you mean then that it runs off 12V. Nixie tubes need high voltage, over 100s to strike the gas to emit light. It just can't physically run on 12V, it would not turn on. If its running on 12V, it might be an LED imitation of a nixie, but it just can't be a proper genuine nixie.
@dan28006 жыл бұрын
Nyan cat lol
@SLvik782 жыл бұрын
Нахрена ты лампы разбил? Их осталось уже мизер. Если ты не умеешь с ними обращаться отдай тому кто может ума им дать и соорудить что - нибудь из них.
@james_robertson7 жыл бұрын
First comment
@andymouse4 жыл бұрын
Both the dead tubes had significant coating on the ceramics, were they failing due to shorts or excessive current draw ? caused by being driven to hard perhaps ? it was hard to see if the Getter was ok, love these tubes, great vid...cheers.