Dekatrons in (their original) action

[Paolo Cravero]

Hello.
While walking around an electronics flea market/rally in Italy I met real dekatrons for the first time. They were six, mounted on a counting device marked "Leybold 55962" (picture attached).

Not much to say about the device except that it was used in a laboratory as a radioactivity counter (you can look up more info on the net) and I couldn't see it working. The price asked was 100 Euro. The seller had another device with dekatrons going for the same price (no picture taken).

In the whole rally then I saw two Nixie-based frequency counters, no spare numeric indicator tubes (I did not open every single valve box to check for mis-labeling :) ) and I bought three small unmarked 9 digit VFDs like IV-21. Still, well worth the journey.

I wonder if there were "mass-produced" devices featuring dekatrons?

Paolo

[David Forbes]

Paolo,

These counters were used in industry, although they were not
commonplace. My coworker says that his father used them in his plastic
bag factory c.1960.

My father used a Dekatron counter (most likely surplus, as his boss was
a surplus hound) in a 1972 data conversion setup to play analog FM data
from an infrared Fourier spectrometer into a Nova computer, then write
it to 9-track tape. Here he is, using it...

On 7/3/2017 8:46 AM, Paolo Cravero wrote:
> Hello.
> While walking around an electronics flea market/rally in Italy I met
> real dekatrons for the first time. They were six, mounted on a counting
> device marked "Leybold 55962" (picture attached).
>

> I wonder if there were "mass-produced" devices featuring dekatrons?
> Paolo

--
David Forbes, Tucson AZ

[Dekatron42]

The Leybold 55962 was used in Physics classes in school to measure time events, there are two plugin modules and a few other extra items that was used with the unit.

/Martin

[Dan Harboe Burer]

I have a couple of dekatron counters in my “small” collection.. The same Leybold with a single module and a funny smaller radiation counter..

The Leybold has a fault I haven’t gotten around to locate yet (I doesn’t count!) but alle dekatrons light up.

 

Dan

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[Paul Andrews]

I took myself off to the MIT flea market about a month ago. The best thing I came away with was an old iPod with the scroll wheel interface - my wife prefers the physical interface to touch screens as she can operate them without having to look at them.

There were no nixies, vfds or dekatrons of any description, either loose or in equipment. One guy I asked suggested I try ebay. Another said quite a few people had been asking.

Oh well. Glad that there are still finds to be had though.

[Dave Brown]

Here’s a photo of the front panel of a  dekatron based (for the high speed decades!) carcass counter-used on a sheep carcass processing production line in a local freezing works some years ago. I have yet to restore it. More pictures here-

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tractorb/dekatron%20counter/

 

DaveB, NZ

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/EF007B60DDC74630B8082F801135E103%40DanDims.

[Roddy Scott]

Now that is what you call real electronics! None of those mysterious plastic blocks with metal legs and invisible resistors.

They knew how to make stuff in those days!

[Paolo Cravero]

Thank you all for your responses and especially for sharing pictures.

The oscilloscope in Dave's father lab looks much like my Tek 7000R (7603R). It is about as old as I am.

And after seeing this picture I asked my parents if they had a picture of them taken while at work, but no. Then I realised that I should ask a colleague to take a picture of me at my workplace (just a plain office): it's one of those everyday actions that don't get recorded but document real life, not holidays.

Paolo