Color Coating Tubes - Sharpie Method

[Tom Katt]

I think painting tubes is a somewhat divisive topic just like backlight leds lol...  But to each their own ;-)  Personally, I prefer some color filtering to block the blue haze induced by the mercury in the tube.  I think most display tube devices used a polarized plastic color filter to increase contrast and readability for similar reasons.  To me, the digits seem much sharper without the blue haze around them.  

I have tried Vitrail glass paint in the past and it works well, but it can sometimes be difficult to uneven thickness with drip marks.  Glass paint is also difficult to remove once cured.

Being somewhat lazy, I tried using a Sharpie permanent marker and was amazed how well it works - and despite the 'permanent' label, the ink is easily removed with alcohol and a clean cloth, so the tubes can be restored to original condition if desired.  Once dry, the coloring has lasted years on other projects I have built.  The markers build up on the glass to a nice shiny layer just like enamel - no lines or other indications that it was done by hand with basically an ink crayon ;-)

Anyhoo - here is another shot of my new clock with the B5991's colored with an orange Sharpie and the small IN-17 tubes done in red.  The lighting has not been favorable and my phone doesn't seem to like the brightness, so the photo doesn't do it justice - in person the digits are clear and sharp.  I like how the seconds differentiate themselves with the red filtering applied (I'll try another photo later to better demonstrate the different coloring).

[Leroy Jones]

https://youtu.be/g_2FTYY2Txg

Tom Katt,    As long as we are showing clocks made with B5991 type tubes, here is a short video featuring my prototype 8422 tube clock.

It obviously is running the bare glass tubes and the blue glow is quite visible.   To my tastes, I really like the blue glow.  I think it looks real nice and adds to the

esoteric visual quality of these tubes.         -Chuck

[Tomasz Kowalczyk]

Amazing result! 
Could you please take a clear picture of the marker, so I could buy one to test this method myself? 
I personally prefer the red filtered look of nixies so I'd like to spice up some Soviet and Polish tubes to my taste. 

[Tom Katt]

It's a 'regular' (I guess) Sharpie permanent marker.  Usually, they are sold in sets of 6 or more colors, but some stores sell them individually.  I think I paid $1.99 each for the orange and red markers (inflation !!!)

I was looking for a wider tip thinking it would work better, but the std point worked fine.

Here is a link to the marker I used:  Sharpie Permanent Markers, Fine Point | Sharpie

[Tom Katt]

I just realized that the red marker was not immediately obvious from the link I posted, so here is a link to the red marker.  I will try and take a better picture of the IN-17 tubes that I colored with the red ink - I think it's a very good red color temperature for Nixie tubes (and is a good counterpoint to the orange colored tubes).

[Tom Katt]

Hi Chuck!  Love your clock as well!  Quite the breadboard project!  Nixies look beautiful to me both 'naked' and painted ;-)

I am also envious of your telephone step switch setup...  I remember seeing some in surplus catalogs many years ago when they were much cheaper than they are now - I kick myself for not buying a few when I had the chance...

Also, apologies for embedding my photos into the post.  I sometimes forget how Google Groups works.

[Peter Csaszar]

Hahaha, that table looks super-cool! :-) BTW, is the WWV just background music or does it actually serve as the time base for the clock? And what is that monstrous device on the wall?

-Peter

[Leroy Jones]

Thanks Peter and Tom Katt.   Not to get too far off topic here but Peter asked about WWV.   For the video I just had WWV dialed up on their phone number (303) 499-7111 and put it up on the

testboard speaker to go along with the 8422 nixie tube clock.    The clock uses a Dallas DS32KHZN/DIP TCXO for its time base.   The equipment shown along with the clock is my 200 line, 5 path

Central Office style Western Electric step-by-step telephone system.       To bring telephones and nixies to a common thread here, nixie tubes were used in phone switching offices even as late as

2003 there were still a few nixies glowing in some of the greater Tampa, FL area telephone exchanges in their Wilton test sets they used for trunk testing.  I worked for GTE, later called Verizon.

-Chuck

[Tom Katt]

Just to add a little ;-)  I recently built a WWV receiver module that hopefully makes it's way to one of my clocks...  While I was aware of the historic WWV signal, I never did much with it and didn't know they upgraded their signal in 2012 to a more reliable phase modulation format that rendered older receivers obsolete.  I was surprised to discover that I could rather easily get a decoded signal inside my home in VT during daytime hours, though it does take up to 30+ minutes for the module to properly latch on and synchronize.  I used an EverSet ES100 module purchased by Canadiuno:  EverSet ES100 WWVB BPSK Atomic Clock Starter Kit - CANADUINO®  Nice folks up in Canada ;-)

As for the old POTS phone lines, if I can accumulate 10 Nixies I always wanted to build a phone number display for my old Western Electric 500 rotary desk set...  I use an Xlink BT HD bluetooth adapter than allows the old POTS phone to work as a handset for my mobile smart phone - it rings, provides dial tone and basically allows it to work exactly as you remember:   XLink BT HD | The new XLink BT HD

[Peter Csaszar]

Hey Leroy,

"The call is coming from inside the house", as the old horror movie cliché goes. :-) So how did you grab hold of that cool phone exchange? Were you able to hook up some real application to it?

As for the TCXO, that goes a long way - I'm using one in my Nori Clock (https://www.nixiana.com/projects/nori_clock/), and have been able to achieve sub-PPM accuracy.

-Peter

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[Peter Csaszar]

Hahaha, I had this XLink-idea once way back when, and I am not surprised that some crafty entrepreneur actually implemented it. :-) But as much as I like the old POTS phone sets (I still have a few in a box), I also appreciate the reclaimed desk space.

-Peter

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