> > > I assume that they did enough study of the idea to ensure a minimum of > expensive warranty repairs. >
For consumer equipment, I always assumed keeping filaments always-on was a way for tube-sets to compete with increasing numbers of solid-state TVs that turned-on much faster. The "instant-on" tube sets definitely burned a fair amount of standby power (not exactly energy-star....). The funny thing is, it now takes a Windows-based computer more time to boot-up from power-on than any tube-based TV I ever owned. Lab equipment, though, often had 3 power modes (off-standby-on), and I think the filaments-on mode served 2 purposes: (a) as you mentioned, for higher MTBF because filaments would not be temperature-cycled which causes shorter life via mechanical stress, and (b) eliminating warmup/stabilization time, which was often 30+ minutes. Back to the original question of the radar-clock, I would keep a small amount of filament current, say 40-50% of nominal, if you plan to power-up the clock within the next day or so. Otherwise, I would do a soft-start AND soft-shutdown to slowly ramp the current to minimize the mechanical stress. It would be a real shame if the filament burned-out after you put so much time into making this truly amazing clock. Any chance you have a spare CRT ? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/e02cceff-d556-4bc3-a8ab-38268d1418ab%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
