26 In18 Tubes

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Hi,
Thanks for adding me to the group.

I picked up a case of IN18 tubes at a garage sale in my area. I assembled the Nixie Tester Kit as sold by Marcin Saj to test them, but can only get one of 26 to work. His support in trying to see if my tubes were good has been nothing short of amazing.

The tubes all appear to be new and unused and are pristine on the inside and in the original carton. Which I why I struggle with the fact that none of them seem work (save for 1).

I am looking for someone in the Seattle area that has an IN18 clock or device and more electrical experience than to see if the tubes are any good.

Thanks!
Jeff

[Nicholas Stock]

Jeff, do you have a plasma globe? You know, one of the cool display like objects? If you do or know someone with one, the quickest test to see if the tubes contain gas is to hold them up against the plasma globe. If they glow then they’re probably OK, if not then the tubes have out-gassed somehow and are no good...:-(

(Pharma) Nick

Sent from my iPhone

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[jf...@my-deja.com]

You don't need a "Nixie tester".  All you need is current-limited high voltage.  In the US, a 100K resistor in series with 120-150 Vac (use an isolation transformer; do not connect directly to the mains!) should light one or two digits at a time.

Are you sure they are new?  Can yo see any longitudinal scratches on the pins?  This would be evidence of insertion into sockets.

To my eyes, it looks like the pins are not true.  That could be evidence of stress that could have broken the glass-to-metal seal and allowed the neon t leak out.  The conventional wisdom is that sockets should have floating pins that do not stress the pins (socket pins not rigidly soldered to the pc board).

[Jeff Aylesworth]

I don' know the history on them at all, I rescued them from a garage sale in my neighborhood. The pins do seem to have a little corrosion in some cases and in some cases they are not true and perfectly straight. I am going to try and track down a plasma globe to see if I can see any signs of life and go from there.

Thanks for the replies!

Jeff

[Terry S]

Are they all the same date codes? Perhaps they are the fallout of a sorting effort.

IN-18's at a garage sale? And a whole case! What are the odds? 

As others mentioned, there are numerous ways to test such tubes. A while back I bought a cheap handheld device for testing neon sign tubes. Works good for nixies too, although it does seem to have destroyed the decimal points on a couple of IN-14's. After that I never touch the pins directly any more, just the glass.

Terry

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Hi Terry,
The guy did have a LOT of neon sign manufacturing materials and other equipment. He was definitely either some sort of professional or deep into electrical/electronic hobbies. I suppose they could have been castoffs for sure but the date codes and other markings match across the lot.

The lowest hanging fruit seems to be the plasma ball proximity test.

 Jeff

[jf...@my-deja.com]

On Monday, April 2, 2018 at 11:04:16 AM UTC-7, Jeff Aylesworth wrote:
> The lowest hanging fruit seems to be the plasma ball proximity test.
> Jeff

Along the same lines, you could use your toy Tesla coil or van de Graaf generator...

[gregebert]

How much voltage does the nixie tester generate ? I'm hoping it's closer to 170V, and you just have a batch of tubes that need a few more volts to ionize.

That said, I have an IN-18 on my desk here at work, which is dead. There are no visible signs of damage, and none of the cathodes glow, even at 300+ volts. It also does not respond to my plasma globe. I concluded that it somehow de-gassed around the pins because the nib is intact. There is no visible date-code; no OTK stamp. Just the CCCP and NH-18 markings.

The surface corrosion on the pins isn't necessarily a problem; most of the IN-18's I have were manufactured in 1989, and have very soft pins (easily bent) with surface corrosion, which I did not attempt to remove. I have worried that over time the corrosion would creep under the glass-seal, and cause micro-cracks leading to gas leaks. So far, that has not happened.

[Dan Hollis]

I am in redmond and I have an IN-18 clock, as well as lots of spare IN-18
tubes.

-Dan

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[Dan Hollis]

Corrosion isn't necessarily a problem. Though it indicates they may have
been stored outside where extreme thermal cycling over time might have
caused the pins to lose seal.

I have had a few tubes die due to stress on the pins from repeated
insertions.

-Dan

On Mon, 2 Apr 2018, Jeff Aylesworth wrote:

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[alb.001 alb.001]

I use a commercial product made for women's complexion, sold on shopping channel - I bought mine at a Goodwill store  called a Derma-wand  seems to generate adjustable (not sure voltage or current) which has a glass tip I hold up to the glass envelope of a nixie and causes several or all the digits to glow.    It generates a lot of ozone which is not good for skin or eyes or lungs but few seconds should do no harm.

Phil  

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[Jeff Aylesworth]

Nice! That's pretty close. Maybe we can meet up and see if I have a case of duds or not.

Hoping I can find a someone nearby with a plasma globe to try that test first.

Thanks!
Jeff

[Paul Andrews]

Well. You have an excuse to enter a Spencer's now - purveyor of fine gifts for the discriminating...

[marta_kson]

Just use a common plastic hair comb. Use it to charge with static electricity and discharge to the glass bulb or the pins. Do it in a dark place. The neon will give off little flashes of orange light if it's there.

[Instrument Resources of America]

    I'm back to report on my microwave oven experiment. Last night when it became dark out, I put a neon 'lamp' (NE-32) in my microwave oven and set it for one second. No results. So I upped the time to two seconds and it did light up nice and bright. I removed it from the microwave and examined it with a magnifying glass for any obvious, visual damage. None found. Repeated the same process twice more with the same results. I let the neon lamp rest  for about a minute between each test. This works for neon lamps, (alsomercury vapor rectifier tubes as previously mentioned) and did not harm the lamp or my oven. If anyone out there is going to try this on a Nixie, I'd suggest not going over one or two seconds and use a Nixie that you could afford to lose, just in case. 

    Regarding the use of static electricity from a hair comb, as noted below. If you have another known source of static electricity in your home, such as but not limited to a blanket, carpeting, etc. you could also use that as well.   Ira.

On 4/4/2018 6:31 AM, 'marta_kson' via neonixie-l wrote:

Just use a common plastic hair comb. Use it to charge with static electricity and discharge to the glass bulb or the pins. Do it in a dark place. The neon will give off little flashes of orange light if it's there.

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[gregebert]

Been there, done that. I found it to be quite lethal for IN-1's, but at the same time, hilarious and definitely toxic.

The link below is 3 nixies at the same time in a microwave oven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYUMy0P560k

[Paul Andrews]

In the interests of science, I went and did it with a tired old B6844A - for 2 secs, several times because I wanted to get a good shot. It arguable works better after this extreme de-poisoning treatment. YMMV:

https://youtu.be/3aagtcZnrzU

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Too funny!

[Jeff Aylesworth]

If end up not being able to prove one way or another if the tubes are good. Is there a market for them as is? I know one work for certain.

Jeff

[Paul Andrews]

One alternative would be to mail them to someone who could test them for you. The closer the better, but I could do it if you would be interested – I am on the other coast though!

 

If they don’t work, you are out the packging+postage. If they do work, you are out packaging+2xpostage.

 

• Paul

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[Dan Hollis]

The offer to try them in my in-18 clock in redmond still stands. I am
pretty sure that would be a definitive test.

-Dan

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[Jeff Aylesworth]

I totally forgot about that. Let me know what works well for you. I think this might be the best route.

Thanks so much.

Jeff

[Jeff Aylesworth]

FOUND a plasma globe!!!

Unfortunately only 3 tubes in the whole case showed any activity like this video we took:
https://youtu.be/wrd98JrAmB4

The other tubes didn't do anything at all.

Jeff

[Nicholas Stock]

That’s a shame....not sure why someone would hoard a whole box of duds though.....

You could harvest the numbers out of them (careful, there may be trace mercury in the tubes...) and use them like other have for numbers on a clock face etc.....shame to just bin them.....I have a crap load of dead Nixie’s that I’ve accumulated over the years and I plan on doing something ‘artistic’ with them at some point....

Cheers,

(Pharma) Nick

Sent from my iPhone

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[Jeff Aylesworth]

Had you seen his home the hoarding part would be clear. :)

[Terry S]

The real question is how did he accumulate a whole case of bad IN-18's? They are notoriously reliable tubes in my experience.

[Jeff Aylesworth]

I really don't know.

 I am a bit disappointed it didn't work out. I did enjoy building the tester kit so no loss there.

I am in the hole about $400 for the case of tubes so that's a bit of a hit, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

[John Snow]

You're not sure why someone would hoard duds while hoarding duds yourself?

[Dalibor]

Hi,

I spoke to a Vadim from VacuumGlow a year ago about IN-18. He does pretty the same for his clocks - recovers NOS boxes with IN-18 from russian warehouses and old factories. He told me he rejects 80% of NOS tubes because of leaks or cathode poisoning. The remaining 20% which is used for clocks works with minimal failure rate. If the seal doesnt fail in first 30 years from manufacture, it will serve forever ;-) I guess the tubes on eBay are selected similar way (russian seller picks NOS boxes, selects good tubes and offers them on eBay), so if when you purchase tested IN-18s on eBay, they will very likely work without issues.

Vadim from Pastindicator does the same with IN-14s and considers these tubes very good in quality - over 90% of NOS tubes is good. But despite this, he has boxes with thousands of duds ;-)

Cheers,

Dalibor

[Paul Andrews]

This is interesting. I have seen more problems posted about IN-18 tubes in clocks than any other tube.

[Alic]

So paying a $1000 for an unopened box of IN-18 isn’t such a good idea after all...
https://m.ebay.com/itm/IN-18-Nixie-Tubes-Lot-of-25-New-Old-Stock-IN18-NOS-UNOPENED/162991044099?hash=item25f305f603:g:pWgAAOSw3gJZKGvG

Suddenly the price of tested IN-18s doesn’t seem that high anymore given how much loss there is.

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Buying a box of untested tubes for $1000+ seems like a terrible bet to me! Thankfully I am out only $400 and might be able to recoup a few bucks on the one good tube and the tester I built.

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Posted on eBay!

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F142795276216

[Jeff Walton]

At least the listing is honest.  3 of 26 with glow is not a good testament to IN-18 pin to glass seal integrity.  

Jeff

-------- Original message --------

From: Jeff Aylesworth <jeffayl...@gmail.com>

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[Jeff Aylesworth]

I definitely want an honest listing. Please provide feedback if you think the listing isn’t clear. I definitely want to be clear on what is being sold.

Jeff

[Jeff Walton]

It's an honest listing, that was my point.  😀

Too many eBay listings conveniently say that there was no way to test and no returns... 

We've all seen postings about pin seal failures on IN-18 nixies.  Wonder if the material properties for the glass to metal seal are not well matched... 

Jeff

-------- Original message --------

From: Jeff Aylesworth <jeffayl...@gmail.com>

Date: 5/14/18 10:10 PM (GMT-06:00)

To: neonixie-l <neoni...@googlegroups.com>

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[Jeff Aylesworth]

Thanks Jeff!

[Tony]

I notice you're sending them via the global tube disposal program so
anyone outside the US will never see them.

Does ebay give you an option to not use it or is it forced on you when
you list them with international postage?.
Tony.

[Jeff Aylesworth]

I don’t follow your statement? Are you suggesting another shipping method and opening up to international bidders? I have locked down to domestic shipping only.

[Tony]

That's interesting - so you have them listed as US only and didn't
know that ebay are offering them to the UK (and other countries) via
their GSP?.

I see '$32.64 International Priority Shipping to United Kingdom via
the Global Shipping Program'.

They have a reputation for destroying anything that looks like it
'contains Mercury' usually vintage vacuum tubes. In this case though
they'd be correct as you can see the small Mercury 'pill' in a wire
spiral at the tube base.

Tony.

[Jeff Aylesworth]

Hi Tony,
I see what you are saying now that I am at a PC. Is there another shipping provider that would work better internationally? I am happy to ship with whoever. My plan was to use a Flat Rate box for domestic shipping.

Jeff