The Original Digital Display

Back in those days, there were no 'solid state' display devices, just thermionic devices, ie: Nixie tubes.

The 100 watt LED lamp with pwm dimmer....with more controls than you can shake a stick at... water cooled, dual variable speed fans...stunning blown glass shade...voltage, amperage, temperature readouts...I had to suspend work when I moved...hoping to restart soon....Don't know what the total cost will be,,but est close to a thousand dollars....

Well that sounds pretty interesting.

C’mon man, details and images!

Still packed up from the move...Will have show and tell when I start again...It's been evolving for some time now....3 different fan configurations, air cooled to water cooled, several iterations, latest with a clear top mounted reservoir pump and cool blue led light....

blown glass shade custom...

Dark room with just LED on... test....

The biggest challenge so far has been finding components that fit the design of the light....like take for instance the heat exchanger, pictured in the second pic above, it's purple, the heat exchanger had to have inlet and outlet mounted on the bottom so the light could mount on top and have the shade sit on that, any hoses would have no place to go unless they were on the bottom, the size of the heat exchanger matches the bottom of the shade dimensions 3" square, and that to work and be supported must be mounted on a square hole slightly smaller to support the structure properly...

...the pump must be at the high point of the cooling circuit, have a clear reservoir with a fill port and bleed fitting to assure that there is no air pockets in the circuit...

When the light is on low, the light cooling system is passive, as it heats the pump activates, as it continues to heat a fan comes on, and the other fan cools the electronics which are encased in the currently blue aluminum box shown in the pics...then there is a high temp safety cutout...

I have aluminum plates and setoffs to mount the electronics vertically so everything can fit in the box, and build a slideout chassis for everything to set on....

...the radiator and fans will be mounted on the back of the box...so I had to find a radiator that fit the back of the box and was long enough to mount the fans on, the fans in turn had to fit the radiator...the inlet and outlet of the radiator had to be configured from the back of the radiator to enter the box....

...needless to say this took a lot of searching, and some trial and error...the exterior of the box needs to be decorated in some way, the blue doesn't work for me, this is what I was working on when I stopped....I would like to veneer it with some rosewood veneer I have, or possibly some design incorporating several veneers and/or marquetry I have...the design will take some time...might use some brass highlights...

....the feet will be cut off and this will sit on the blue box holding the shade in place....the pump reservoir will emerge from the top of the box next to this....

That is very interesting - wonderful and complicated and expensive, quite at home here.

Please do keep us posted when progress resumes, won’t you?

I still have a working counter with nixies (an HP 5245L). The crystal oven gave up a few years ago. It was always powered, even when the counter was turned off. So now I use an external time base.

I made a round digital clock with one LED for each hour on the outer edge. The minutes display is 2 vertical rows of LEDs. The seconds display is one horizontal row (binary). I never got a face plate made for it (to mark what each LED means). The same time base that runs the counter can run the clock.

That sound interesting. I’ve been interested in unusual displays, the Russian style of Nixie tube (the 5 is simply an inverted 2, one fewer patterns to cut) being an intriguing effort in economy of parts. As long as it works, I guess.

For anyone interested, here is a video of a fellow making Nixie tubes (IN-14, IIRC). This guy is building up his cottage industry shop, and the business model is almost as interesting as the production of the tubes.

This video is about 38 min long, but it is a good watch if this process interests you:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL4ElboiuA