How do I hook up a Wester Electric 6167 Dekatron (WE 439A)?

[Dekatron42]

Hi all,

I recently aquired a few Western Electric 6167 dekatrons. I have not
been able to find a schematic drawing for these nor any equipment
where they have been used.

Does anyone know of any schematic drawings where it is shown how these
dekatrons should be hooked up. I have checked the usual websites but
only found datasheets, photos or videos of them.

Thanks in advance!

/martin

[John Rehwinkel]

These are unidirectional, single pulse dekatrons. This makes them a little easier to drive
than some other dekatrons. To just get one pulsing around is easy enough. Hook all
the cathodes together (except for the "normal cathode"), and connect the guides together
(pins 11 and 14). Hook the anode to a few hundred volts via an appropriate current
limiting resistor. You can ignore the auxiliary anode. To figure your current limiting
resistor, divide the desired current by the difference between your supply voltage and
the maintaining voltage. The minimum supply voltage is 300V, and the maintaining
voltage is 110V. The current the tube wants is 100 to 3000 microamps. If you have
a 450 volt supply, you could use a 1 megohm current limiting resistor to provide
(450 - 110) / 1,000,000 = .00034 amps, or 340 microamps. That would be a reasonable
starting value.

Then alternately ground the cathodes and the guides, with some overlap. You can do
this manually with a pair of switches, or electronically with transistors. The glow should
march around the dekatron, taking a step every time you switch between the cathodes
and the guides.

If you want to do counting and/or calculations, then it gets a little more intricate, and you
use the "normal cathode" and auxiliary anode to make sure the glow starts where you
want it to, and route one or more cathodes to separate circuits to detect when the glow
comes to them.

But the above should at least get you started.

- John

[Dekatron42]

Thanks John,

I guess there is not much difference in driving these than in driving
the EZ10A/B then.

Do you know of any original schematic diagram where they are used?
I've only seen the datasheet.

/Martin

[John Rehwinkel]

> I guess there is not much difference in driving these than in driving
> the EZ10A/B then.

Yeah, same basic idea.

> Do you know of any original schematic diagram where they are used?
> I've only seen the datasheet.

I haven't seen any either. WE made a lot of oddballs for their own internal
projects and government stuff, I'm guessing one of those. I'd love to find
out more about this tube's history.

- John

[threeneurons]

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 5:20:59 AM UTC-7, Dekatron42 wrote:

I recently aquired a few Western Electric 6167 dekatrons. I have not
been able to find a schematic drawing 

Here's a video of one working with my kit:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqpnm0_western-electric-we6167-in-spinner-kit_tech

The few I still have a picky little bastards. They don't want to spin unless the anode current is at least 1mA. Also, if they do stall in one spot for too long, that spot gets "sticky". To un-stick it, I had to up the current over 2mA, and run that way for  a few minutes, then it work again at 1mA. My kit makes about 450V. The anode resistor used was 150K. The tube connects as follows:

Pins 1,2,3,7,8,9,10,12, & 13 tie to a 'K' connection, which is +60V on my kit. Pin 4 (K10) ties to the NDX, which goes thru an LED, but it can also tie to 'K'. Pins 11 (B6-B10) & pin 14 (B1-B5) to to guide G1, The anode is pin 19, which gets tied to +450V thru that 150K resistor.

Note, the drop across the tube (anode to cathode) is only 110V. This means the anode sits at ~170V, once its on. The voltage drop across the anode resistor will be 450V-170V = 280V. Most 1/4W resistors are rated for only 250V. For long term assurance, I'd split the anode resistor into two series resistors. 150K could be 75K+75K, 68K+82K, or 100K+47K.

Kit schematic:

http://threeneurons.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/sp393_sch.gif

[Dekatron42]

Thanks for all information!

Do you have any information on cathode resistors or how the circuit
for the reset cathode and auxiliary anode should be connected?

I realise that I might have been a bit unclear in my first message,
English is not my mothers tongue.

So what I am really looking for is information on how they were
connected in real circuits.

/Martin

On 10 Maj, 01:19, threeneurons <threeneur...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 5:20:59 AM UTC-7, Dekatron42 wrote:
>
> > I recently aquired a few Western Electric 6167 dekatrons. I have not
> > been able to find a schematic drawing
>

> Here's a video of one working with my kit:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqpnm0_western-electric-we6167-in-sp...

[mjrippe]

Hello,

I have a bunch of these tubes and at one point I was doing some
research on them for a possible article. It fell by the wayside, but
I did find a bunch of patents using the 6167/439A. Contact me
directly and I'll send you a .zip file.

Mike