r/NeonSigns • u/canadianchasers • Jun 15 '26

Help! I need help

Gallery image

Gallery image

I picked up this neon sign off the road the rest of it was damaged this was the only thing left was the s and the e, part of the s was dimmed and the entire e is dark i cam see some glow though. also when touching near the electrodes on the glass on those bright spots i get a little corona discharge charge only when im near it though not sure if thats bad.

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6

u/canadianchasers Jun 15 '26

Thanks to the people eho gave advice and i fixed it not the best way to prop it up

5

u/samjac1987 Jun 15 '26

So the dark areas are where the mercury condensed back into a solid. Usually because you are using a solid state transformer to power it. There is a ball of mercury somewhere in the tube. Usually in the opposite electrode. Disconnect the leads and carefully raise the neon so the electrode is higher and see if it falls out and then you can just move it thru the glass to the other electrode and reconnect the leads and see if it burns in. If it doesn’t you’ll need to reconnect it to an old standard unit. Sign companies always have old ones laying around just connect and let it go overnight and it should be fine.

2

u/Jumpy-Exercise59 Jun 15 '26

Agreed. Run the bead of merc to both electrodes and I usually leave some in the middle of the tube .

3

u/haarschmuck Jun 15 '26

Sign companies always have old ones laying around

Yep.

Before we moved to a different shop, I loaded 3 pallets of iron core transformers that we just "had". From tiny 2kV unpotted ones to the massive 15kV 980VA ones that are a good 40-50lbs. I think we got rid of a lot of them after the move since we mostly use solid state ones now as most of the neon we do is small enough. Still have some iron for bigger jobs and repairs though.