28 Oct
1998
28 Oct
'98
8:05 a.m.
At 12:23 PM 10/28/98 -0600, you wrote:
ObCC: I picked up a Burroughs C3207 calc the other day.
Nixie tubes and
transistors. It doesn't go, and I have no idea how to make it go again.
All I know is that Nixies are high-voltage, so I'm reluctant to poke my
fingers in there.
I seem to remember there was a single Nixie tube for sale on Haggle.com...
for around $3.00 or so (at the time...)
Don't they run on 170 volts or somesuch wild figure???
"Merch"
28 Oct
28 Oct
8:58 a.m.
New subject: Nixie stuff
At 02:05 PM 10/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
I have a Burroughs C3350 and it supplies +200V to the nixie tube
drivers. You do have to be careful when poking around, and keep
those fingers out of the area of the display.
FWIW it's not that unusual to have HV running around in calculators,
the Panaplex 7-segment displays (which came along after Nixies) also
have about 200V running around inside. You gotta figure if it's
got a neon glow, there's HV inside.
Later,
Alex Knight
Calculator History & Technology Archive Web Page
http://aknight.home.mindspring.com/calc.htm
ObCC: I picked
up a Burroughs C3207 calc the other day. Nixie tubes and
transistors. It doesn't go, and I have no idea how to make it go again.
All I know is that Nixies are high-voltage, so I'm reluctant to poke my
fingers in there.
I seem to remember there was a single Nixie tube for sale on Haggle.com...
for around $3.00 or so (at the time...)
Don't they run on 170 volts or somesuch wild figure??? 
10:36 a.m.
New subject: Nixie stuff
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10:32 a.m.
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3:19 p.m.
Don't they run on 170 volts or somesuch wild
figure???
A nixie tube is basically a neon bulb. It turns out that if you drive a
neon bulb from DC, then the cathode appears to glow, and the anode
doesn't. A nixie tube has a number of cathodes in the shape of the
required symbols (often, but not always, 0-9), and a mesh anode. Being a neon bulb, it needs a current-limited HV
supply to run it.
Typically a 200V-ish supply with A suitable series resistor.
I'll have to rig up some kind of ladder network, I guess. I have a board
out of an ancient calculator with 9 or 10 Nixie tubes (and a neon bulb
for the '-' sign). I've always wanted to fire it up, but never had the
time to build some kind of high-voltage BCD driver. This sounds like a job
for a PIC, a kind of serial to Nixie driver. I could always drive it with
an ancient UART (the kind that didn't need a CPU) and a pile ot TTL, but
I think the PIC could keep the part count low.
-ethan
29 Oct
29 Oct
10:05 a.m.
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