tmcdllr
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| I remember seeing these displays as a kid but didn't know until now what they were or how they worked. These things are so cool! Now I want to get a Nixie clock. Does anybody have a Nixie clock and what do you think of these things?
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Nothing like the beautiful cool white light of a coated Mercury Vapor lamp and the soothing hum of it's magnetic ballast.
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dor123
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| Nixie Tubes are neon negative glow lamps that have 10 electrodes in the shape of digits, from 0 to 9. Only one electrodes operating at a time, displaying a digit.
They were used to display digits in the vaccum tubes era, but later replaced with LED displays and later LCD displays.
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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f36t8
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I like nixie tubes and other uncommon display devices, such as incandescent segment displays. I have a nixie clock I built, Video . But it doesn't look nice in that wooden box. The tubes came from eBay. I usually don't use it, because I am to worried about wearing out the tubes. For this reason I have installed a switch that turns of the tubes but keeps the clock itself running. |
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nogden
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Nelson Ogden
 
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| I occasionally see test equipment at hamfests with nixie tubes. I have two nixie tube voltmeters that I use often. They are neat!
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Brisluminous
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| Good old Nixies
I remember them being built into the control panel of a photocopier that was in my primary school, in 1977. That machine took up most of the room!
I always wanted a Nixie clock but they are so expensive. I still see Nixies used in scales, butcher shops and such places.
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Ash
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| There is vacuum fluorescent display which is cool too
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nogden
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Nelson Ogden
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I wouldn't imagine that nixie clocks are too expensive if you build your own. You can also find old test gear with nixie tubes that isn't too expensive. Here is my Fluke nixie tube digital voltmeter that I still use daily on my workbench. I also have an old Heathkit DVM with nixie tubes, though I retired it when I bought the Fluke. Love nixie tubes (and vacuum fluorescent, too)! |
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Brisluminous
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| Yes the Heathkit stuff and the bench gear was great Nixie stuff. Ash VFD should never have given way to LCD, it looked great. Love it when it is used in car instrumentation.
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Ash
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| VFD have their drawbacks - energy use (you dont want VFD on battery powered equipment as it'll drain the battery faster). and life (the electrodes sputter over time, a few year old VFD that worked constantly is looking worn while an LCD is not worn at all)
But where applicable yep i agree
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dor123
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| I think that even today, mains operated printing calculating machines, continues to use VFD displays.
All of our past video tapes in my mother home, had VFD displays.
The first video tape that we had in my mother home, that have a LED display, is the LG combined video tape and DVD in one mechine.
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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Medved
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| VFD still have it's advantages:
Their largest advantage are color-less not energized segments, what ensure good readibility even in strong external light, without the need for high brightness, yet still excellent uniformity of generated light allow an "all-environment - all angle" display consume less power than with LCD (widening the angle require strong backlighting), while isn't as aggresive light as LED based display.
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No more selfballasted c***
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