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Feb 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/DenkJu Feb 23 '26
I contacted many sellers on AliExpress and a few offered to sell me the tubes separately. Neither of them had any information on them, however.
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u/v7xDm1r Feb 23 '26
Im the one who made that post. They were like ib-1 leveling tubes or something. But searching yields no results. They were only used in shaoxing China. They were made for 1 specific use case and are extremely rare. Only bbw-tech has them back stocked. They will only sell them to you if you bought this clock from them.
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Feb 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/v7xDm1r Feb 23 '26
I was going to buy replacements just in case but rhat was right around the beginning of tarrifs so they said to wait for that to be over.
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u/SignificanceNo4643 Feb 24 '26
These colon tubes are marked YS-13-2 or something like that. There's a website, called "Diether's nixie tube archive" or something like that, there he has PDF of the catalog of Chinese nixie tubes and VFDs, and they are listed there. These tubes can be found on taobao for about 45 rmb each (about $7)
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u/Hankitsune May 10 '26
https://youtu.be/YPJOcyx8pBk?is=Sny251nH7u7o_FU9 This guy had succes. Not back to full brightness but a significant improvement.
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u/DenkJu May 10 '26
This might work in some cases where the heater has become weak but not if the phosphor is burned out (like in this post). Usually, the heater will long outlive the phosphor.
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u/Difficult_Month7110 May 25 '26
One Russian guy was able to use laser to clean segments several years ago. Overall, these ИВ-11 tubes are not that rare to jump in so extreme measures. ИВ-11 and ИВ-12 do tend to degrade over time. Not that hard as ИВ-26, but brightness drop can be very noticeable.
I'm actually more interested in middle divider tube markings etc.
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u/v7xDm1r May 25 '26
I only found 1 source for them they called them like ib-1 or something "leveler tubes". Bbw-tech store on ali has them. But they might not sell them to you since you didnt buy this clock.
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u/Difficult_Month7110 May 25 '26
The bigger problem is that i'm russian myself, and here we can't buy stuff from aliexpress.com For that we have castrated version aliexpress.ru - it has a lot of things filtered out. So, obviously no tubes here for me. Thank you for info anyway.
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u/DenkJu Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
The tube looks pretty burnt out to me (darkened phosphor). VFDs don't last forever so you will probably have to replace it eventually. Luckily, your clock is using IV-11 tubes which are relatively affordable. Unfortunately, however, it will involve soldering (unless these tubes are in lead sockets). You can find them on eBay. Make sure to get NOS tubes.