The Lost Art Of Nixie Tubes

Wouldn't you first have to discover the lost art of being very rich?

Yea, Kinda thinking what they are working with in the video would be a ~$300 - $500K up front investment to get setup before the first tube was made and based on estimated labor each tube ought to be valued at $200+ each to break even.

There's always a market for the very best of something....

But what if you don't see that as being the very best of anything but just overpriced so so quality with a huge time and financial value placed behind it to falsely justify itself?

You can spend a year of your life chrome plating a turd and hand polishing it to a mirror like finish then slap $100,000 price tag on it to justify your efforts but in the end in my book it's just overpriced polished turd you wasted a year of your life's work on.

I agree.

If this joker wants to waste 1/2 million dollars and a year of his life duplicating a commodity that can be had for a few dollars, he'd better call it art.

It's a complete waste of time and money.

Why would I pay that when I can get a gold plated turd for just $350.??

Very popular in Japan, btw. Why?

Because, Japan.

It doesn't even have to be the very best to sell, or even very good, so long as it is backed by great marketing. Just ask Microsoft.

I can remember frequency counters that used these things!

You can still buy them for 10 bucks each here.

IN-14 Nixie Tube/Cold Cathode Display — Single Digit 0 to 9 — Vertical Mount

Part number: VET-NIX-IN14

$9.95

They got cheaper ones for sale on ebay, or you can buy kits to make your own....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/162261621547

I still have an old frequency counter that uses these things. An HP 5245L Electronic Counter. It's so far out of calibration that it's practically useless for precision work, but it is still functional.

Too bad. Mine is still accurate, but I had to repair the oven once. The picture shows that you need to replace some neon bulbs in the display boards.

Wide variety for sale here.

Way too neat and tidy of work for me to ever enjoy. The clean lab environment alone makes me uptight.

If it cant be built in a field during a dust storm its too finicky for me to enjoy working with it.

I'm thinking more a sundial for you....

And that my friends is the definition of "labor intensive"!

Dekatrons are interesting, act as counters and memory devices, with some designed to drive nixies directly.

The The Harwell Dekatron / WITCH at the Computer Museum in Bletchley, UK used dekatrons extensively as memory devices (each dekatron storing a single decimal digit). It is the oldest working digital computer.

Here they're cycling Harwell's dekatrons to mitigate 'cathode poisoning.' These tubes often contained other gases besides neon, including hydrogen, helium, and argon, and quite often so-called "Penning mixtures." The highest-speed dekatrons typically contained hydrogen along with shaped electrodes which allowed counting rates up to 1 MHz.