Any one have a dutchtronix kit or PCB?

[Chris Stalin]

Hey fellas.

The CRT bug bit me...... Thanks to John R!
I have emailed dutchtronix regarding a single PCB for my self. Sparkfun seems to bave discontinued the oscilloscope clock pcb.

Do any one have a spare pcb or kit kicking around I could buy ? I was hoping for the pcb only as I have most of the parts ( except the DAC )

I suppose I could use sparkfuns eagle files and send them off to a fab house....

One last question, I have access to the russian 3LO1I and 6LO1I CRT. ( thanks John ).
Ive seen 2 threads discussing the phospor lifetime of the tubes to be less then 1000 hrs. Can any one confirm ? Not too useful as a clock if its lifetime is so short.

Thanks guys
Christian

[Oscilloclock]

CRTs are just fabulous! Welcome to the looney bin.

Would you mind posting links to those threads? I haven't chanced upon any holistic research comparing phosphor life across CRT types, so if anyone knows of such it would be fun to see. I personally use as a rule of thumb 2000 hours useful continuous life at normal intensity for vintage NOS tubes made by brand manufacturers such as Sylvania or Toshiba in the U.S. or Japan. Multiplied by 10 for Tektronix and HP! :)

General ways I avoid the grave disappointment of an early CRT failure:

1. Auto-power off (and On - in my Wishlist)
2. Auto or manual dimming to save the phosphor
3. Screen saver (bump or image change)
4. Soft-start
5. HV application AFTER heater is warmed up (Wishlist)
6. Secure LOTs of spares!

Aaron

[petehand]

My experience with Russian tubes, the 3LO1 in particular, is that they barely last 500 hours. I did an extremely simple scope clock six or seven years ago and I was going to publish it for anyone to make, but I make the mistake of mentioning it on this forum and within days the Russian seller tripled the price of the tubes. I was so annoyed that I sat on it, and then I noticed after three weeks the brightness was fading and in five weeks it was so dim that you couldn't see it in daylight. I switched out the tube and the second one faded in less than 4 weeks. Such a pity, it was a real cutie. So your point 6 is important - secure lots of spares.

[Christian]

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the reply. Yes the CRT bug bit me.

Ill gladly share the links. I will post them and copy paste the relevant blurbs.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/NEONIXIE-L/conversations/topics/44646

"shihslakji"
I made a scope clock using the Russian 3LO1 tube and found the phosphor lifetime is measured in DAYS. It took considerably less than 100 days (more like six weeks) for the brightness to fade to practically nothing in the frequently-written parts of the screen near the center, leaving just the tips of the hands showing. I replaced the tube and the second one went just as fast. They're garbage.

http://svo.2.staticpublic.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/zloshnik/index.en.html
At first I was going to build a CRT clock. But after learning that 3ЛО1И has a very short resource, some 1000 hours, I changed my mind. Zloshnik does not try to be a clock.

And now petehand has kindly chimed in for the 3rd person n to say that the 3LO tube is not up for the task as a long term clock.

You are right on the auto off and auto dimming, But it seems that the tube still is sub par compared to the other US tubes?

Spares are the only way.... But at XX$a pop, It might be ideal just ot buy a high quality one from the get go.

What tube is relatively cheap these days with a long history of proper functioning 2AP1?

Thanks again for your reply Aaron.

Christian

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[Christian]

Hi petehand,

Thanks for your detailed reply.

I agree, its a real shame the 3LO tubes are rather cute!

Do you mind posting your hardware for the clock. Schematics and such? Always hungry for some more ideas or intellect.

Have you given thought to baking the tube in the oven to see if that helps things?

What CRT is ideal for this task of running continuously or for long periods of time. 2AP1 and DG7 ?

Thanks again

Christian

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 2:29 AM, petehand <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:

My experience with Russian tubes, the 3LO1 in particular, is that they barely last 500 hours. I did an extremely simple scope clock six or seven years ago and I was going to publish it for anyone to make, but I make the mistake of mentioning it on this forum and within days the Russian seller tripled the price of the tubes. I was so annoyed that I sat on it, and then I noticed after three weeks the brightness was fading and in five weeks it was so dim that you couldn't see it in daylight. I switched out the tube and the second one faded in less than 4 weeks. Such a pity, it was a real cutie. So your point 6 is important - secure lots of spares.

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[Grahame Marsh]

For sale - eight 3L01 CRTs - brand new - hours of life - bags of cuteness...

What an embuggerance :-(

Grahame

[Nicholas Stock]

Perhaps I'll make an artistic sculpture out of them.....an embuggerance indeed!

What did they use them for given the crap lifetime?

Nick

Sent from my iPhone

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[John Rehwinkel]

> My experience with Russian tubes, the 3LO1 in particular, is that they barely last 500 hours. I did an extremely simple scope clock six or seven years ago and I was going to publish it for anyone to make, but I make the mistake of mentioning it on this forum and within days the Russian seller tripled the price of the tubes. I was so annoyed that I sat on it, and then I noticed after three weeks the brightness was fading and in five weeks it was so dim that you couldn't see it in daylight. I switched out the tube and the second one faded in less than 4 weeks.

I'm trying to figure out what the wearout mechanism is. Could be phosphor dissociation, color center darkening, or cathode poisoning. What anode voltage did you use? Do you still have the failed ones? If so, care to put one in an oven at 400°F for an hour and see if it recovers?

Once I get my variable regulated CRT power supply built, I may do some experiments myself, but I'm looking for early data.

To answer Christian's question as to what is a good, long life CRT, the 3RP1/3RP1A is a good choice, as well as the aforementioned Tektronix scope CRTs (except the fancy expansion mesh ones, which are unlikely to be used for art/clocks in the first place). Other good choices are the 3BP1A, 1E36P20, most of the P31 phosphor tubes, and any tube designed for television use (but those are generally magnetic focus and deflection, which is a whole 'nother ball game). I have a bunch of assorted different Russian electrostatic deflection CRTs, and I will be sad if they're all short-lived beasts.

- John

[David Forbes]

I made a bunch of scope clocks in the early 2000s, using the Chinese
National Electronics 3RP1As (sold by Richardson). They are most all
still running. I personally had mine wear out after about 13 years.
That's 100,000 hours!

--
David Forbes, Tucson AZ

[Oscilloclock]

Argh - I meant to say in my earlier response that my rule of thumb is 2000 DAYS (not hours) for good quality NOS CRTs. (Thanks David,your mention of 100,000 hours made me spot the blooper.)

These days I'm quite enamoured of used Japan-made 3KP1(F)s as an alternative to 3RP1A. See recent blog posts on my site for some practical comments and pictures. They are very, very reliable. I haven't run one continuously for 2000 days yet, though!

- Aaron

[petehand]

I was "shishlakji" on the old group, it's the same clock. Here is the schematic. The M62354 DAC may need a little explanation. It's a voltage output serial input DAC. The voltage reference is floating - does not need to be ground at one end - this is unusual in DACs. Here the reference is the voltage across diode D7. I jacked it up off ground for proper biasing of the long tail pairs, but I ended up giving them a negative supply, so any old DAC would do now. I have no idea where you could get a M62354 today -I just happened to have some in my junk box.

The 3LO1 tube life is definitely a phosphor problem. The phosphor layer is so thin it's practically transparent and the brightness fades from the center, where the beam traces over it most frequently. Towards the end of life the center doesn't glow and only the tips of the hands are visible. I don't know what such a short life tube could have been used for - perhaps an instrument on a weapon when they expected the next war to be over in 24 hours.

[Tristan]

If they fail that quickly and the damage is concentrated in the center then it sounds like it could be also be ion damage to the phosphor as opposed to an issue with the phosphor itself. I'm not sure how good the vacuum is on some soviet tubes in general (I suspect it varied from factory to factory if not day to day) and most electrostatic CRT's of this era don't seem to have an an aluminium layer or an ion trap to protect the phosphor.

[Brian]

I have this...if that's what you are looking for I can send it your way.  Kit parts may be incomplete, but I think most of it is there.

-Brian

[Brian]

Hm, I realize now it is definitely missing the BNCs and the DB-9.

[Christian]

Brian.

Sent you an email.
I have no use for the db9 or bnc so those are good missing parts lol.

Please be aware you have an invound email.
Thanks for the offer !!
Christian

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