Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
Speaking of batteries. I don't know how many of you buy batteries (cells) at Harbor Freight Tools, but be aware that they sell several different cells with different chemistries. Alkaline, which I've bought lots of and had no problems, and some VERY INEXPENSIVE cells, that I've been told by another customer standing in line with me the following. That they were the decades old ZnMgO chemistry, that they would not last very long, and that they would most likely leak and damage whatever they were in. Just they did to about everything I put them in decades ago. I have "NOT" gone to any trouble to verify this though. If any of you know for sure, please let us all know. Ira. On 4/5/2014 6:12 AM, jodell wrote: My kids call me Buzz Killington when I remind them of the safety implications. Still, maybe a gentle reminder that a)any size cell in series at these voltages magnifies the results when any individual cell exhausts the reactants within it. b)the electrolyte in Lithium cells is flammable/explosive c)if you must, personal protective gear and shield your surroundings I used to work for one of the major battery producers in their R&D facility and because I am rampantly curious, asked many questions and learned a lot about many of the failure modes of consumer electronics and the cells/batteries that power them. If you have cells in series, there will always be one cell that that "runs out" first. When it does, the rest in the series will "charge" it. Very few chemistries or constructions are suitable for this, and generally instead, the water within the electrolyte hydrolyses to hydrogen and oxygen. The gas produced naturally expands until some portion of the case fails. 90V through an old school "heavy duty" Zn-MgO with a weak paper wrapping does no more than ooze, and they were contained in cans surrounded by bitumen to pot them. Failure mode is just leakage and a bit of a mess. In addition, the discharge profile shows gradually decreasing voltage, which allows the consumer time to pick up a replacement battery long before you get to gas production levels. For coin cells, both Ag and Li-type cells have a really nice discharge profile that stays nearly at the rated cell voltage almost all the way to depletion, then it drops off to zero very sharply. Since watches and cameras are very expensive to replace when the cells leak, the seals on the cells are very very good and will hold a much higher gas pressure. (In fact, one test of a watch cell design involved dropping one in a solder pot of molten lead or tin and timing till it explodes. Done in a hood with a big splash shield and the door down.) So when one cell switches to charge mode, pressure within can result in a much more dramatic failure mode. With lithium chemistry, lithium reacts with water, so an organic (flammable) electrolyte is used. On charging, gas production and seal rupture now releases a flammable liquid or gas and fire can result. This is a long-winded explanation that says, if you assemble a 90V cell, use the chemistry they did back then with the type of cells they used back then, or design your experiment to deal with potential explosion and/or fire. Remember that a battery is an oxidation reaction controlled in a can, just like gasoline in a car engine is a controlled oxidation reaction. This is Buzz Killington, signing off :) On Saturday, April 5, 2014 4:06:47 AM UTC-5, petehand wrote: Let's apply some engineering to see what kind of battery would do the job. Assuming a neon strikes at 90V and extinguishes at 60V, the average voltage across the resistor would be 15V. Initially, I arbitrarily choose the series resistor to be 1M and the capacitor to be 2.2nF. The flash rate would be about 1 every 2 seconds. The average current per neon would be 15 microamps. Let's say there are 8, and we want it to run for a year (8000 hours), that means we need 960mA-hrs. Somehow I don't think the old radio battery was anywhere near an amp-hour. So how about 10M resistor and 1nF capacitor. The flash rate would be about 1 every 10 seconds. It wouldn't be very busy or very bright but with 8 lamps, something would be happening often enough to be interesting. The average current would be 1.5uA so for a year we would need about 100mA-hr. That's doable. So take a block of something insulating - wood might do - 3 inches square by an inch deep, drill four 1/2 inch holes right through, each hole takes 15 LR44-size cells. Fashion a couple of end plates out of PCB material, solder on bits of spring out of a ball point pen. Solder a neon christmas tree together like joenixie, attach to base and connect to battery ends. Stick it on top of the TV and enjoy it for a year. Sounds like a perfect wet afternoon project for the (grand)kids! Now excuse me while I submit this as a little project to fill the
Re: [neonixie-l] Links to Vintage Russian Electronics
Quoth Joseph Bento at 2014-04-06 06:54 ... Does anyone have links to photos of Russian military equipment that contains the Nixies we covet? I'd enjoy seeing photos of IN-17s, IN-12's etc in service. Good question. Be nice to see some of the ex-Soviet parts (not just Nixies) I'm using in original context. -- Matthew Smith Business: http://www.smiffytech.com Blog: http://www.smiffysplace.com Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/smiffy Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/msmiffy Twitter: http://twitter.com/smiffy ABN 16 391 203 815 -- 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/53407BAC.4030705%40smiffytech.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
I always heard them referred to as an "Idiot Box." Neon relaxation oscillators are fun. Such a device can be built where the lights blink in random patterns, or they can be configured to flash in sequence. 90 volts worth of 9v batteries is expensive, and a true B battery cost even more. I tend to use a simple oscillator feeding a backwards filament transformer, thereby getting the needed 90v from a few AA cells. Joe, N6DGY On Thursday, April 3, 2014 1:26:06 AM UTC-6, petehand wrote: > > Does anyone remember these things? > > Brits will deduce the era of this device from the currency. It consisted > of simple neon relaxation oscillators powered from a 90V portable tube > radio battery, the whole potted in solid plastic. I saw much nicer ones a > few years later, with miniature neon bulbs soldered to a wire frame and > visible through clear resin potting - the battery was potted in black > underneath and couldn't be seen. I had a shot at making one myself, but > never succeeded in getting the clear casting resin to set without it > heating up and cracking. > > These days I've got plenty of neons - does anyone know where I can find a > 90V battery? :) > > -- 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/a8d4b19e-9d96-49ae-ad7c-b8a8b52c590b%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[neonixie-l] Links to Vintage Russian Electronics
Does anyone have links to photos of Russian military equipment that contains the Nixies we covet? I'd enjoy seeing photos of IN-17s, IN-12's etc in service. Joe, N6DGY -- 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/d47ae320-4d4c-45ff-a1d2-1d170975c404%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
I'm no battery geek, but that last pdf was fun to look at ;-) Cheers, Frank -Oorspronkelijk bericht- From: John Rehwinkel Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2014 4:06 PM To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox I used to work for one of the major battery producers in their R&D facility and because I am rampantly curious, asked many questions You sound like me! This is a long-winded explanation that says, if you assemble a 90V cell, use the chemistry they did back then with the type of cells they used back then, There is some data lying around. A NEDA 204 (IEC 60F40, Eveready 490) 90V battery, uses 60 #135 cells (LeClanche-Manganese Dioxide) in series. Unfortunately, I don't know the specs on an F40 or #135 cell, so I don't know the milliamp-hour capacity. Here's some data I found: http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/490.pdf Exell make an alkaline version of this battery (for $34.50), but they don't seem to offer any specs on it. Perhaps I'll ask them. Data on the "skinny" 90V battery I had is even more scarce. It's a NEDA 214 (Eveready 479). I don't have an IEC code and I don't know what kind of cells it was built out of (I'm guessing something like their 140mAh #118 cells or 200mAh #118P cells). I took it apart, and it was physically just ten 9V rectangular batteries in series, all in a cardboard wrapper with snap terminals on top. Have any clues or data on these old 90V batteries? Apparently, Union Carbide/Eveready still makes the old 455 (NEDA 202) 45V 550mAh B battery (30 #130 cells): http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/455.pdf And a few folks still offer the monster 510V NEDA 741 (Eveready 497) photoflash battery, composed of a whopping 336 #118 cells in series! http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/497.pdf I think I'm a battery geek. - John -- 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/C2BD842A-3CBD-4060-8B41-B426674C70DD%40mac.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. --- Dit e-mailbericht bevat geen virussen en malware omdat avast! Antivirus-bescherming actief is. http://www.avast.com -- 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/4D7FB04D23254014A11BCC01AA34D549%40FrankPC2012. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
> I used to work for one of the major battery producers in their R&D facility > and because I am rampantly curious, asked many questions You sound like me! > This is a long-winded explanation that says, if you assemble a 90V cell, use > the chemistry they did back then with the type of cells they used back then, There is some data lying around. A NEDA 204 (IEC 60F40, Eveready 490) 90V battery, uses 60 #135 cells (LeClanche-Manganese Dioxide) in series. Unfortunately, I don't know the specs on an F40 or #135 cell, so I don't know the milliamp-hour capacity. Here's some data I found: http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/490.pdf Exell make an alkaline version of this battery (for $34.50), but they don't seem to offer any specs on it. Perhaps I'll ask them. Data on the "skinny" 90V battery I had is even more scarce. It's a NEDA 214 (Eveready 479). I don't have an IEC code and I don't know what kind of cells it was built out of (I'm guessing something like their 140mAh #118 cells or 200mAh #118P cells). I took it apart, and it was physically just ten 9V rectangular batteries in series, all in a cardboard wrapper with snap terminals on top. Have any clues or data on these old 90V batteries? Apparently, Union Carbide/Eveready still makes the old 455 (NEDA 202) 45V 550mAh B battery (30 #130 cells): http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/455.pdf And a few folks still offer the monster 510V NEDA 741 (Eveready 497) photoflash battery, composed of a whopping 336 #118 cells in series! http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/497.pdf I think I'm a battery geek. - John -- 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/C2BD842A-3CBD-4060-8B41-B426674C70DD%40mac.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
My kids call me Buzz Killington when I remind them of the safety implications. Still, maybe a gentle reminder that a)any size cell in series at these voltages magnifies the results when any individual cell exhausts the reactants within it. b)the electrolyte in Lithium cells is flammable/explosive c)if you must, personal protective gear and shield your surroundings I used to work for one of the major battery producers in their R&D facility and because I am rampantly curious, asked many questions and learned a lot about many of the failure modes of consumer electronics and the cells/batteries that power them. If you have cells in series, there will always be one cell that that "runs out" first. When it does, the rest in the series will "charge" it. Very few chemistries or constructions are suitable for this, and generally instead, the water within the electrolyte hydrolyses to hydrogen and oxygen. The gas produced naturally expands until some portion of the case fails. 90V through an old school "heavy duty" Zn-MgO with a weak paper wrapping does no more than ooze, and they were contained in cans surrounded by bitumen to pot them. Failure mode is just leakage and a bit of a mess. In addition, the discharge profile shows gradually decreasing voltage, which allows the consumer time to pick up a replacement battery long before you get to gas production levels. For coin cells, both Ag and Li-type cells have a really nice discharge profile that stays nearly at the rated cell voltage almost all the way to depletion, then it drops off to zero very sharply. Since watches and cameras are very expensive to replace when the cells leak, the seals on the cells are very very good and will hold a much higher gas pressure. (In fact, one test of a watch cell design involved dropping one in a solder pot of molten lead or tin and timing till it explodes. Done in a hood with a big splash shield and the door down.) So when one cell switches to charge mode, pressure within can result in a much more dramatic failure mode. With lithium chemistry, lithium reacts with water, so an organic (flammable) electrolyte is used. On charging, gas production and seal rupture now releases a flammable liquid or gas and fire can result. This is a long-winded explanation that says, if you assemble a 90V cell, use the chemistry they did back then with the type of cells they used back then, or design your experiment to deal with potential explosion and/or fire. Remember that a battery is an oxidation reaction controlled in a can, just like gasoline in a car engine is a controlled oxidation reaction. This is Buzz Killington, signing off :) On Saturday, April 5, 2014 4:06:47 AM UTC-5, petehand wrote: > > Let's apply some engineering to see what kind of battery would do the job. > > Assuming a neon strikes at 90V and extinguishes at 60V, the average > voltage across the resistor would be 15V. Initially, I arbitrarily choose > the series resistor to be 1M and the capacitor to be 2.2nF. The flash rate > would be about 1 every 2 seconds. The average current per neon would be 15 > microamps. Let's say there are 8, and we want it to run for a year (8000 > hours), that means we need 960mA-hrs. > > Somehow I don't think the old radio battery was anywhere near an amp-hour. > So how about 10M resistor and 1nF capacitor. The flash rate would be about > 1 every 10 seconds. It wouldn't be very busy or very bright but with 8 > lamps, something would be happening often enough to be interesting. The > average current would be 1.5uA so for a year we would need about 100mA-hr. > That's doable. > > So take a block of something insulating - wood might do - 3 inches square > by an inch deep, drill four 1/2 inch holes right through, each hole takes > 15 LR44-size cells. Fashion a couple of end plates out of PCB material, > solder on bits of spring out of a ball point pen. Solder a neon christmas > tree together like joenixie, attach to base and connect to battery ends. > Stick it on top of the TV and enjoy it for a year. Sounds like a perfect > wet afternoon project for the (grand)kids! > > Now excuse me while I submit this as a little project to fill the gap in > my favorite magazine. Actually, all kidding aside, this is the kind of > thing that might appeal to Make Magazine. > > -- 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/215b183a-7540-48ef-b62e-5231de0f432e%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[neonixie-l] Re: Whatbox
Let's apply some engineering to see what kind of battery would do the job. Assuming a neon strikes at 90V and extinguishes at 60V, the average voltage across the resistor would be 15V. Initially, I arbitrarily choose the series resistor to be 1M and the capacitor to be 2.2nF. The flash rate would be about 1 every 2 seconds. The average current per neon would be 15 microamps. Let's say there are 8, and we want it to run for a year (8000 hours), that means we need 960mA-hrs. Somehow I don't think the old radio battery was anywhere near an amp-hour. So how about 10M resistor and 1nF capacitor. The flash rate would be about 1 every 10 seconds. It wouldn't be very busy or very bright but with 8 lamps, something would be happening often enough to be interesting. The average current would be 1.5uA so for a year we would need about 100mA-hr. That's doable. So take a block of something insulating - wood might do - 3 inches square by an inch deep, drill four 1/2 inch holes right through, each hole takes 15 LR44-size cells. Fashion a couple of end plates out of PCB material, solder on bits of spring out of a ball point pen. Solder a neon christmas tree together like joenixie, attach to base and connect to battery ends. Stick it on top of the TV and enjoy it for a year. Sounds like a perfect wet afternoon project for the (grand)kids! Now excuse me while I submit this as a little project to fill the gap in my favorite magazine. Actually, all kidding aside, this is the kind of thing that might appeal to Make Magazine. -- 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/1e9651d3-35e2-4082-9439-df42f6c0d08d%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
