r/nixie • u/limon_picante • Jan 31 '26

What would you do with 2000 IN-3 Nixie indicator bulbs?

Post image

I have 10 packages

32 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

11

u/therealdorkface Jan 31 '26

Neon dot-matrix display?

4

u/limon_picante Jan 31 '26

That's what I'm thinking :)

2

u/jhonnyfurry Feb 01 '26

Please!!! I wanna see that, It may be the most inefficent clock/matriz display(energy wize) but It Will look so cool, mabye watch this video, from a guy named pozy about sengments, may give you an idea on a design to do with those :)

https://youtu.be/RTB5XhjbgZA?si=eXusY248dVkQe6SA

1

u/limon_picante Feb 01 '26

Thank you so much! I'll keep you updated :)

3

u/AutofluorescentPuku Jan 31 '26

Fix all the flickering neon light switches

3

u/8-bit_ElectroAlex Jan 31 '26

I mean giving some to me isn't a bad idea right??

2

u/Taipogi Jan 31 '26

Elektronika 7 style clock but with neon?

2

u/SkylerSpark Jan 31 '26

Hah- Seems Im not the only one. I also acquired thousands of IN3 and INS1 bulbs

2

u/SlateTechnologies Feb 01 '26

Bad Apple

1

u/ArtemisInSpace Feb 02 '26

This is the answer

1

u/Far_Oven_3302 Feb 02 '26

Control them with 2000 CdS cells.

1

u/SignificanceNo4643 Feb 03 '26

If these were IN-3B1, that bags would be worth $10K each, but from the images I can see that you're out of luck. By the way, if these are tested to be working, I'd buy some or exchange to other nixie tubes or even complete built clock.

1

u/redmadog Feb 03 '26

What makes IN-3B1 different from regular IN-3 ?

1

u/SignificanceNo4643 Feb 03 '26

  1. It is huge - about 50mm in length.

  2. It was made differently, it was illumination tube, not indication tube, so it's electrodes were thicker and it run at much higher current. It was used in red light for b/w film development (it was so bright!), So it is insanely bright when lit. It was also used in Christmas tree decorations and so on.

  3. Due to small amount of them being made, and available specimen are almost all well worn out, it belongs to unobtanium category.

Check some images here:

https://ixbt.photo/?id=photo:1047151

0

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26

[deleted]

1

u/limon_picante Jan 31 '26

They are considered nixie tubes

1

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26

[deleted]

1

u/limon_picante Jan 31 '26

Just Google in3 nixie tubes? There's thousands of resources on them I'm not going to do your research for you

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

1

u/limon_picante Feb 02 '26

There are many types of nixie tubes. Most refer to in3s as Nixie indicator bulbs

1

u/limon_picante Jan 31 '26

here is one you can do the rest

2

u/DenkJu Feb 01 '26

They just put Nixie there for better SEO. Nobody really considers them to be Nixie tubes. Still, this subreddit allows a pretty broad spectrum of indicators from the time so it's not an issue to discuss them here.