Quick question about GR10G and GR10J tubes...

[Bill Notfaded]

Do these tubes often take more than 170V or more than normal current like for say most other similar sized tubes? And if so any good ideas to light them up? Even a single tube clock would be cool. I was even thinking of maybe ordering boards for Paul's single tube clock and building a few of those as I'm guessing very few clock designs were made with these weird base British tubes from ETL or others?

Bill

[Dekatron42]

Yes and No, check their datasheets.

Yes for the GR10G: http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/dat_arch/GR10G.pdf

No for the GR10J: http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/dat_arch/GR10J.pdf

The GR10G requires higher voltage to strike and more current to light up well.

/Martin

[【ツ】John Smout]

I have a Hivac and an ETL version of GR10J. The rated average lifetime of the ETL is 10,000 hours - a year and a bit. So not really suited to clock use. Current 4ma and 150v minimum firing voltage, very normal.

A single tube clock I made some years ago.

John S

[Bill Notfaded]

Weird how on the 1 (8.2k ohm) and the 7 (4.7k ohm) cathode they suggest additional "equalizing" resistance in addition to the regular 10k ohm anode resistor.  Thanks Martin.

Bill

[Bill Notfaded]

That's a really neat clock Bill.  Despite the life of the tubes they're so interesting that I too wanted to have some and light them up... it's hard when you love nixie tubes to not want to find some unique ones and both of these I'd say fall into that category for sure!

  Is clock-it.net your website Bill?  Wow I'm really impressed with some of your fabrication ingenuity if it is!  The self built IN-18 tube socket made from polymorph poured into what looks like an old scotch tape center reel... great idea.

Bill

[Dekatron42]

They didn’t account for the difference in surface area of the different digits when they designed the GR10G as they did in later Nixies, therefore you have to compensate and that is easiest done with a cathode resistor.

Some Nixies use two lines for the ”1” digit to compensate for this and on some other digits have a less wide digit.

/Martin

[【ツ】John Smout]

On 2 Aug 2019, at 16:12, Bill Notfaded <notf...@gmail.com> wrote:

… Is clock-it.net your website Bill?  Wow I'm really impressed with some of your fabrication ingenuity if it is!  The self built IN-18 tube socket made from polymorph poured into what looks like an old scotch tape center reel... great idea.

Bill

Hi, I am John S, not Bill. Clock-It is my site. Very out-of-date though.

As for polymorph, it’s great for all sorts of things and feels like nylon when hard. It melts and goes waxy at about 60ºC, 140ºF. At higher temperatures it acts more like a glue.

But polymorph is not why I am posting. I am currently looking at Oyumaru. I just bought a pack from Japan. This melts at 80ºC, 176ºF. It is a mo(u)lding material with a similar use to liquid silicon mo(u)lding material without the mess and expense. It is flexible when set and thus can be peeled off intricate shapes. It can be pressed against already set Oyumaru and will peel apart, making multi-part mo(u)lds easy to make.

Oyumaru comes in quite small sticks in a variety of colo(u)rs to attract the kiddies I suppose. 

I saved the best part until last, Oyumaru can be reused over and over. Just put it back in a cup of hot water and re-heat in the microwave.

The best material to use once you have your mo(u)ld is possibly an epoxy putty such as Milliput. Press the putty into all the sections of your mo(u)d and then press the sections together. Peel apart when set.

I am sure the steampunk brigade can find all sorts of uses for this to replicate complicated detail. Probably good for making nixie sockets too.

John S (not Bill)

[Bill Notfaded]

Wow that's cool John... Sorry about calling you Bill too lol!

Bill

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[Bill Notfaded]

I suppose it wouldn't be the first time an engineering project had to put in some white wire right? Well both of these tubes seem really unique between the gold screen and the lack of background on the other they're neat tubes.

Bill