The Return of the Nixie Tube -- as a clock

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I found this video from one of my favorite YouTubers.

He speaks of a manufacturer who has not only re-created a nixie clock, they have started remanufacturing the defunct Nixie Tubes, as new stock.

I have always been fascinated by nixie tubes myself, a cold cathode numerical display method, that dates back to the 1960s computing and other uses. I seem to recall, the Russians of that era, built a 10-based computer that used these things. Yes--- not binary, not hexadecimal, but base 10.

Anyway, here's the video:

 

[ChristineM]

They are available but i dont know if they are new or old stock

Online Shop for nixie tubes Wholesale with Best Price

Nixie Shop | Buy Nixie Clocks Online

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

They are available but i dont know if they are new or old stock

Online Shop for nixie tubes Wholesale with Best Price

Nixie Shop | Buy Nixie Clocks Online

With a modest bit of research, new-old stock tubes tend to run about $50US. The new-new stock, from the video, run around $100US per each, I think. They are basically hand-crafted, and that adds a lot of expense.

Old-old stock tubes are much cheaper, but like all vacuum tubes? They have a very finite lifetime. And they also grow dim over time.

 

[Nakosis]

Average longevity of Nixie tubes varied from about 5,000 hours for the earliest types, to as high as 200,000 hours or more for some of the last types to be introduced. There is no formal definition as to what constitutes "end of life" for Nixies, mechanical failure excepted. Some sources[2] suggest that incomplete glow coverage of a glyph ("cathode poisoning") or appearance of glow elsewhere in the tube would not be acceptable.

Nixie tubes are susceptible to multiple failure modes, including

simple breakage,
cracks and hermetic seal leaks allowing the atmosphere to enter,
cathode poisoning preventing part or all of one or more characters from illuminating,
increased striking voltage causing flicker or failure to light,
sputtering of electrode metal onto the glass envelope blocking the cathodes from view,
internal open or short circuits which may be due to physical abuse or sputtering.
Driving Nixies outside of their specified electrical parameters will accelerate their demise, especially excess current, which increases sputtering of the electrodes. A few extreme examples of sputtering have even resulted in complete disintegration of Nixie-tube cathodes.

Cathode poisoning can be abated by limiting current through the tubes to significantly below their maximum rating,[9] through the use of Nixie tubes constructed from materials that avoid the effect (e.g. by being free of silicates and aluminum), or by programming devices to periodically cycle through all digits so that seldom-displayed ones get activated.[10]

As testament to their longevity, and that of the equipment which incorporated them, as of 2006 several suppliers still provide common Nixie tube types as replacement parts, new in original packaging.[citation needed] Equipment with Nixie-tube displays in excellent working condition is still plentiful, though much of it has been in frequent use for 30–40 years or more. Such items can easily be found as surplus and obtained at very little expense. In the former Soviet Union, Nixies were still being manufactured in volume in the 1980s, so Russian and Eastern European Nixies are still available.
Nixie tube - Wikipedia

 

[ChristineM]

With a modest bit of research, new-old stock tubes tend to run about $50US. The new-new stock, from the video, run around $100US per each, I think. They are basically hand-crafted, and that adds a lot of expense.

Old-old stock tubes are much cheaper, but like all vacuum tubes? They have a very finite lifetime. And they also grow dim over time.

The days of tubes are gone. But we still use them, not nixie but KT88s in the amplifier. Cost between €70 and €130 depending who has them in stock. Need replacing about once a year or so otherwise the warm, sweet sound gets rattly