Good point. For some reason I had thought that there was a ceramic component to the cathode, and that was part of its purpose. But I may be way off. It may just be there to help with the aesthetics of the display.
Hmmm. Sounds like more research is needed. -Meredith On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:44 AM, John Rehwinkel <jreh...@mac.com> wrote: > > We're experimenting with making our own nixie tubes in our shop. I was > > planning on making the cathode out of stainless steel, but was > > wondering if anyone had any advice about the best material to use. > > Would it be better to try to find something rare-earth coated, or > > isn't it necessary? > > I don't think you need barium oxide or the like for emission, but I do seem > to > recall that nixies generally have something coated on the back of the > digits > to suppress the discharge there, to concentrate it on the fronts. > > I had been toying with this too, but had trouble sourcing insulators for > the > digit stack. > > http://www.vitriol.com/images/tech/nixies/cathodes.gif > > - John > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "neonixie-l" group. > To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.