Test them and watch for incomplete illumination, or blackness inside the glass. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My experience with Burroughs nixies is that the 5092's are *very* reliable; I've never had one fail even after several years. These tubes contain mercury, so it's possible that's what you see on the glass. Many of my 5092's have no known history, so I assume many of them were used. They still work fine.
I've had one 6091 fail, and it is blackened on the inside of the glass after 1 year of usage. None of my other Burroughs nixies are blackened, so I suspect that this tube had excessive cathode sputtering. Most likely it was a manufacturing anomaly. Beware of Burroughs 5031 tubes. They are earlier-generation than the 5092, and I have several that don't illuminate properly. Even attempting to depoison them with excess current made no improvement. I suspect they have leaked some of their neon gas over time, and that newer-generation tubes improved the metal-to-glass sealing. Remember that we're talking about tubes made 50+ years ago, so it's rather amazing they still work after all that time. -- 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/5e8dae2e-3c17-4a47-90fa-9d0c7abe009a%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
