Dekatron Z562S help

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

Hi

A Dekatron would make a nice feature in my current pandicon-project.
I currently have Z562S Dekatrons, and i want to use these, because they are relatively small and short!


But i'm struggling to get it working. It works perfectly fine when driven by a Arduino via two HV Transistors, but i would really like a "analog" solution.

I have tried different designs from the internet but none of them worked for me, either my dekatron was going crazy or just did nothing. I only tried versions with "charge pump" anode voltages, because i have no mains available in my project.
What could be wrong? Any idea / known issues about the Z562S?

My need is a slow variable-speed spinning dekatron that is only a visual feature, it don't has to drive anything!

But if there is a way, it would be nice to connect a magic-eye tube to the output of the dekatron and perform a "wink" on every full turn of the dekatron.


Any help would be great!

Thanks
Jonathan

[Dekatron42]

Have you had a look here: https://threeneurons.wordpress.com/dekatron-stuff/ ? A lot of stuff on dekatrons is explained and showed with working circuits there.

/Martin

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

I tried the NE555 Version on that page

Sadly i dont have either 0A2 tube or NE-2  for the others :(

[gregebert]

I'd still recommend digital control for the dekatron if at all possible; it's only 3 control bits and having software control allows you to do just about anything you can imagine.

Regarding magic eye tubes, I've read they have a rather short lifetime (around 1000 hours) depending upon brightness. Really unfortunate because they have a beautiful shade of green and add nostalgic value. So make sure you can leave it unpowered except when showcasing your project (I would turn off the filament and the HV supply).

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

It works now!

A faulty lab-cable connected to NDX cathode fooled me!