Well, quite a bit of 'documentation' is not a lot more reliable than eBay descriptions actually... Particularly if there's any mention of argon - there are dekatrons that contain argon, but not very many.
There are quite a few questions blended together in your ask: - Ageing. The key thing to look at here is speed - if you're looking at a slow speed dekatron (4-5 kHz max pulse rate), then as a general rule it'll be tough as old boots and work fine irrespective of age. High speed dekatrons (10kHz+) are different - they have different gas mixtures inside and bad stuff happens to them in storage. Many are DOA even if they are genuinely unused and in mint condition when you buy them. Some models of fast dekatron are better than others. And some are appalling - you'll do well to find a live example of those. - Working lifespan. Dekatrons like exercise. If you run them within the specification for anode current and do not allow the glow to dwell on one cathode for protracted periods of time, then they will go on and on. If you operate them at excess current and/or keep them stationary then the life will shorten significantly. - Base material. I assume you're referring to the Soviet OG series which are found with black/brown phenolic bases or so-called 'metal base'? In that case, the base makes no direct difference to the properties of the tube - it lies outside the glass envelope which is where all the cool physics is happening. And besides, what's called 'metal base' is simply a thin metal sheet wrapping a black phenolic base! If your question was directed to reliability differences between all-glass types like Z504S, GS10H and based tubes (octal, B12E etc), then maybe. The all-glass tubes are more subject to pins bending or other mechanical stress weakening the glass-metal seal and allowing gas leakage, which is bad. On the based tubes the mechanical stress goes onto a structural metal pin which does not directly contact the glass - there is a wire connection soldered to the pin, and it's the wire that passes through the glass and into the tube. So there's a mechanical separation between the pin you're pulling in and out of the socket and the more delicate glass construction which keeps the tube safer. Putting it all together, if you just want to use dekatrons in a design with minimum worry, go with a slow speed tube with octal/B12E/RSH30 bases. Besides, the orange glow of the neon-based fill in slow tubes is much brighter than most (but not all) of the more funky but fragile alternatives. Jon. -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/18337686-1b21-4372-9708-f013950f7470%40googlegroups.com.
