Neons for all!

[martin martin]

For anyone needing nice colons for their pretty clock, allspectrum.com has a new website!

Neon Lamps - All Spectrum Electronics

Enjoy!

[gregebert]

Nice that they sell single-units. Years ago I had to buy them in a box of 1000, so I bought green ones and sold some to folks on neonixie. I've also seen blue ones.

They dont seem to have as long of a lifetime as traditional neon bulbs; the phosphor coating "wears out" after a few years so be sure to keep spares around.

[Greg P]

Nice that they still sell the NE-2's with the 60mm leads.  Really wish someone would offer those with even longer leads so you don't have to extend the wire when making clocks with larger tubes.

[Richard Scales]

I got so disappointed at how extended neon leads on colons looked - I ended up making a tiny PCB which sits inside the glass tube with a metal base to match Dalibors tubes. 
I used to spend ages with enamel copper wire and such like - not any more!

- Richard

[Adrian Godwin]

I've got a VFD clock to build sometime. It's a multidigit tube with wires at both ends. I thought I'd extend and strengthen the wires to support the glass by soldering them into fine brass tubing as used by modelmakers.

It'll probably turn out a mess because of all the different radii but might be OK on simple neons, though brass probably doesn't match the Dalibor bases too well. Maybe nickel plated brass.

[Greg P]

Richard, please post pictures.  Very interested to see your solution.

[Neil QQ]

Memotronics is a good source for the hi-brite C2A and A3C bare lamps.  They come with 2" (50 mm) leads.  (US company)

Has anyone had success in reviving NOS (emphasis on the O) neon lamps?  I acquired LT2-32-2T lamps (1" bulb length).  I've tried running them at elevated currents (2x to 10x) with limited success.  Out of the box, the electrodes only light the top 1/4 to 1/3 of the electrode length.  After over-driving them rather severely (~10X for 1 hour) the lit electrode length extends to about 1/2.  

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

Wow, I have not seen those ".22 caliber" Neon bulbs (A1H) since I was a kid back in the 1970's. Somewhere I think I have a few. A friends father was an EE and had a bunch of them from work. The friend gave me a few to play with. I recall that even though they physically looked the same, some were redder and some were bluer than others. Guessing some had mercury and the others did not.