[Milsurplus] Bad Nixie Tube?

Thomas Adams quixote2 at ix.netcom.com
Sun Sep 14 22:24:13 EDT 2014


At 09:20 13-09-14, Don Merz via Milsurplus wrote:
>Has anyone ever seen one go bad? I have an old Nixe HP counter that 
>works perfectly and I'd like to keep it that way. Should I be 
>keeping spare nixies? Or is that a waste?
>73 de N3RHT
>______________________________________________________________


I like the old HP Nixie tube counters too; got one of the plug-in 
ones, and several plug in units. It's an old Bell
System unit (KS, or Kerney Spec type number), meant for rack 
mounting, and the input is on the rear apron; I
keep it in the rack for my transmitter, monitoring the output 
frequency of the T368/URT transmitter VFO module
I use as an exciter. The rear input connector makes it ideal for that purpose.

I think it was like ten bucks at a hamfest.

I had one Nixie go bad; it overheated (anode current limiting 
resistor shifted value) and the tube cracked at a pin.

Fortunately, I'm sort of paranoid about such things, and since they 
were dirt cheap at the time I had a parts unit
in my garage; a buddy of mine band sawed it to get out the time base 
oscillator module for one of his projects!

I have a few spare tubes around for the counter, but I'm sort of 
cautious about it; Nixies are like voltage regulator
tubes in that they're spiked with strontium to make them fire more 
easily. If accidentally broken, they leave
radioactive fallout.


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