Waching daily Aug 29 2018

In this episode

We'll tell you about lamps

lamps

lamps

and what's inside of them

But I need to get prepared for that!

Handmade nixie tube clocks

Today we have displays everywhere

But early displays looked like this

and were made of nixie tubes

This tubes are not produced for more than 25 years

But we decided to use them in our clocks because they are insanely beautiful

Look!

This kind of tubes were used during 40 years

and were manufactured in many countries.

And today I'll about tubes that we use.

Here you can see tubes that we use or planning to use in the nearest future

IN-14

IN-8

IN-8-2

IN-12

This red ones are German Z570M and Z573M

IN-16 that we plan to use with a new project

This tiny Z5900 tubes

And of course the biggest soviet nixie tube IN-18

This tube is pretty rare, from early batches, made in 1970

LET'S LOOK INTO IT

This tube has pretty rary marking on it

Made in USSR

Usually these tubes have only USSR sign of quality

And let's take side cutters

First let's cut tube legs

Took them off

First let's remove getter

It's a special thing for the purpose of completing and maintaining the vacuum

to prolong tube life

Removing mica insulators

And now we should reach the digits

This thing is the anode mesh

Here are they are: the digits!

Lie one under the other

crumbled before us

First one is number 6

than 5

This tubes are filled with a neon gas and when high voltage is applied to a digit

neon around this digit begins to glow

So it's not like in incandescent lamp

The gas is glowing, not the metal part

If you look at the digits: they are cut from a metal plate

number 2

before the last one is 0

And the last one at the very bottom is thick number 1

And between digits were round ceramic insulators

And here is the anode mesh

At the front side it's real mesh and at the back is a metal plate

That's how the IN-14 tube is made

We disassembled the tube and seen in what order the digits are placed

How do you think, why this order was chosen?

I think that this order makes the digits more visible

Best of all visible is digit 1 so it's at the very bottom

And other digits are placed so the other wouldn't cover the others

If you have other opinion about digits order please write it in comments.

It will be interesting to discuss!

Now I want to tell you about IN-12 tubes

But before that let's talk about tube markings!

This circle with a dot inside that IN-12, IN-14 and IN-16 tubes have

IN-8 tube has different marking: circle with "M" inside.

These are signs of factories that produced this tubes.

IN-12, IN-14, IN-16, IN-18 were produced by Gazotron in Rovno, Ukraine

IN-8 and IN-8-2 were produced by MELZ (Moscow Electronic Tube Factory)

The building of this factory and factory itself still exists, but of course it's not producing tubes.

And this red tube was produced in East Germany, GDR

The same tubes were produced by TESLA in former Czechoslovakia

Let's proceed to IN-12 tubes!

Let's make a combo!

IN-12 tubes are the highest: have the greatest distance between digits

And also it's a minus of this tubes: this reduces the angle of visibility of the digits

Let's crack it open!

Removing the mesh

This mesh is more simple than previous

But is has more mounting points

And here are the digits below!

As far as I can see, digit's order is different here

The first one is number 3

Than number...

Difficult to hook it...

number 8 almost

I need to cut this wire

And finally number 8!

It got away...

number 9

number 4

0

Number 5. By the way in this tube it's turned around 2

Same you can see in IN-14 tubes

Number 7

Oh, that was 2 and here is 5

5, 6 and 1

Number 1 is the same way placed at the bottom

But other digits as I can see have different order than at the previous tube

Maybe my conclusion about digits order was wrong! Write in comments what do you think about it!

It has getter on the side

Here are IN-8 tubes!

IN-8 has hard pins and IN-8-2 has wire pins for soldering into PCB

We usually use IN-8-2 tubes, they are more common and more reliable

The main difference of IN-8 tube is lack of getter.

It's a minus of this tubes

Let's look what's inside!

And let's see the order of the digits

Oh, that was easy!

6, 5, 7, 4, 8, 3, 9, 2, 0, 1

As far as I remember 0 and 1 were at the end of IN-14 tubes.

But I didn't remember the order of other digits.

We have a punk here!

Please bring me the main course!

Come on

So cool!

I wanted to try this for long time

Let me finish it

So beatiful!

The biggest Soviet Nixie Tube

Let's carefully disassemble it!

And look what's inside!

Mica insulator

Let's cut this

So nice!

IN-18 has hard legs to be installed into socket

Done

Taking off the insulators

That's not easy

Done!

And now we should carefully cut the mesh

Let me see how is better to do it

Let's try here

Here are mounting points

carefully...

Got it!!!

Digits flew apart. Let's put them in order!

Number 7

3

number 5

6

or 9? No, it's 6

Number 8

still 8

5

0

6 and 1

Here are the tubes that we examined today

IN-14

German Z570M

IN-8 and IN-8-2 from MELZ

IN-16

IN-12

Also IN-18, but I had only one. So I don't have it here.

Please note that in this episode we crashed only dead tubes

We urge you to save the old equipment and things, especially working ones

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See you!

I can't stop! I have one more box with dead tubes!

Handmade Nixie Tube Clocks