| Gentlemen- | My name is Dylan Kehde Roelofs; I've been a scientific | glassblower for 20 years, and I believe I can answer | a few of your questions.. | | ... my website at www.incandescentsculpture.com | I've also got some stuff premiering at a show in | ...Dubai(http://www.indexexhibition.com/page.cfm/link=143) | | Tooling up an entire factory to make 10,000's of tubes is | a pipe dream, even if the market exists. | | ... cathodes are all nickel - anything else would be eaten | by the mercury. | | | You could probably skip the mercury by introducing a | higher pressure of xenon gas, and make white nixies, | instead of orange .. large [Xe] in atomic terms that | sputtering is minimized | | You'd need: thin nickel sheet, | high alumina ceramic ... little washers | | The hardest part, by far , is the glassblowing. That | glass-to-metal seal with 14-16 pins in it would be quite | tricky, and requires 3 different glasses for evening out | the strains. | | Cheers- | Dylan Kehde Roelofs
I guess the short answer is that nixie manufacturing ain't gonna happen. I personally suspect that the 'audio tube' market is at least 2 orders of magnitude (100x plus) larger than any potential nixie market. There are actually two 'audio tube' markets - (1) Audiophiles, & (2) guitar amps. Combined they use a lot of tubes. But we can still make (or try to make) nixie tubes, on a much smaller scale, as a hobby; individually, or collectively. And taking that path, why not use this forum to organize a collective effort. I have a few questions: (1) Do the digit cathodes really need to be pure nickel ? Will an alloy like Inconel 600 (72% Ni) work ? (2) Laser cutting thin metals (0.015 to 0.080") will not impart much heat to the metal, and if its pure nickel, then any worry of the alloy being screwed up, is not an issue (?). (3) To minimize the electrical paths to the outside world, make the tubes biquinary: http://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/045/z/ZM1030.pdf This way only 8 leads are needed, instead of 11 minimum, for a standard nixie. I'm very familiar with the capabilities of a laser cutter, and cutting digits as small as 0.5" tall (out of 0.020 to 0.050 sheet), is very do- able. Larger digits, even easier. -- 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.
