Noon to be dekatron spinner owner

[Aisha Love]

Hello, my name is Aisha and I am a big fan of vintage display technology. 

I already own a VFD Cyber watch from Nixoid store and soon will have a dekatron spinner and I'm currently working with someone to design a simple clock using a bubble display.

My interest started with Nixie tubes and expanded from there. I hope to one day have a large collection of unique vintage display devices.

I hope to get a nixie clock and maybe a numitron clock in the future, on the fence about a scope clock as I greatly prefer a digital clock display.

Here is the dekatron spinner I'm going to be getting. I asked for a wood case instead of the clear plastic and I was not disappointed.

you can buy one from this site http://stocksclocks.com/ ask for a wood veneer case if you like how this one looks.

 

[Mac Doktor]

On Apr 24, 2022, at 5:25 PM, Aisha Love <aishalo...@gmail.com> wrote:

My interest started with Nixie tubes and expanded from there. I hope to one day have a large collection of unique vintage display devices.

Magic eyes. Here are some really inexpensive boards that are a good starting point. They have a 12V jack, 3.5mm audio jack and a power switch out of the way in the back. This first one includes a Chinese EM84:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193443031569

The second is almost identical. It uses three different sockets for three different pinouts: EM80/81, EM800/EM84 or a Soviet 6E5S:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/191011269169

The seller has all three sockets. I bought six boards and two sets of sockets. I also scored two or three each of the tubes listed above. The only caveat with these particular boards is that the 6V regulator and the power MOSFET don't have heatsinks and I haven't been able to find any small enough to fit (there's almost no room). The first board has an LM317 and it gets hotter than the LM7806.

The 6E5S really heats things up. My eternal thanks to anyone who can find an affordable TO-220 heatsink that's barely larger than the horizontal TTR itself.

My apologies if I've already talked about this before. I'm very happy with what I ended up with and like to share. 8D

I really do need to post this info to my blog but I haven't had time to take pictures and shoot video. Sound familiar?

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."—Roy Batty, Blade Runner

[Aisha Love]

Those magic eye tubes look really cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Dekatron42]

You could mount the regulator & mosfet on the underside of the circuit board and perhaps get more space for a heat sink there. Just bend the legs upwards and use a spacer between the tab and the circuit board when screwing it in place so you don't stress the tab and bend it.

/Martin

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

"Magic Eye" tubes are some of my earliest memories of interesting displays when I was a child. My maternal grandparents had a Dumont TV (didn't everyone LOL?) that used a 6AL7 eye tube for tuning the built in AM receiver. My father had a Fisher AM/FM receiver (with add-on stereo MPX demodulator) that used a very rare 6GE12 eye tube with one side for AM and the other FM. Then of course there were more common round 6E5, 6U5 tubes I recall on some vintage receivers of various family members. By the time I was a teen in the 1970's, radio used tuning meters.

[Paul Andrews]

I'm just restoring an old radio that has one. I don't know if it works yet or if I'll need to find a replacement. This has been a goal for a while now - I've restored several old radios, this will be the first with a magic eye.

I also built an AM broadcast unit that uses vacuum tubes and a magic eye - it was a mash up of two different designs I found on the internet https://youtu.be/QIib5W-JCY8

[Adrian Godwin]

On Monday, April 25, 2022 at 11:45:22 AM UTC-4 Robert G. Schaffrath wrote:

"Magic Eye" tubes are some of my earliest memories of interesting displays when I was a child. My maternal grandparents had a Dumont TV (didn't everyone LOL?) that used a 6AL7 eye tube for tuning the built in AM receiver.

I never saw one used as a tuning indicator though I messed with a lot of discarded valve radios in my youth. But I do remember the magic eye on my father's Telefunken tape recorder, used for the recording level. It was a linear tube with a central rectangular green section that grew and shrank.

[Nick Andrews]

I'm really not at all familiar with them, but am interested to learn more.  I do have an old Heathkit(?) cap tester that uses one of the end-on style tubes.  I need to dig that out and see if it works.

Have a small stash of IN-9 and IN-13 bought before prices became idiotic that I might use for a thermometer or spectrum display at some point.  But no magic eyes yet other than the one...

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/05DDBC1F-CEB1-4035-93A6-A5F06A4FAF28%40gmail.com.

[Mac Doktor]

On Apr 25, 2022, at 2:35 PM, Adrian Godwin <artg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I never saw one used as a tuning indicator though I messed with a lot of discarded valve radios in my youth. But I do remember the magic eye on my father's Telefunken tape recorder, used for the recording level. It was a linear tube with a central rectangular green section that grew and shrank.

I first saw one on an old radio and then later on a tape recorder back in the '70s. Later a circuit tracer IIRC.

On Apr 25, 2022, at 3:29 PM, Nick Andrews <nickja...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm really not at all familiar with them, but am interested to learn more.  I do have an old Heathkit(?) cap tester that uses one of the end-on style tubes.  I need to dig that out and see if it works.

This site has animated gifs showing the display patterns:

http://www.magiceyetubes.com

Tons of additional info:

https://www.sm5cbw.se/tubes/index.htm (click on "Magic Eyes")

http://www.r-type.org/inx/inx00501.htm

https://radioremembered.org/tuneye.htm

Have a small stash of IN-9 and IN-13 bought before prices became idiotic that I might use for a thermometer or spectrum display at some point. 

Have you seen Mike's thermometer?:

https://threeneurons.wordpress.com/nixie-power-supply/nixie-thermometer-kit/

I bought the last one that came with two ZM1000s. Wish I had a dozen more IN-13s. I don't have a enough for all of the kits that I have and now...

But no magic eyes yet other than the one...

Again, snag one of these for $20:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193443031569