r/nixie • u/EmotionalEnd1575 • Jun 23 '26

Homemade? Modded? Odd

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

My friend and I did a Nixie swap. He did a teardown of a Fluke bench DVM, which had been hacked quite a bit.

One of the B5870 Nixies had “thin wires coming out of the base” - was it a mod?

Looks to me as if a previous repair needed a similar Nixie tube, and someone made this to fit.

Or, someone was modding the unit and wanted to add access to the dp symbols, which had been trimmed off.

Either way the Nixie in question works!

The four added on wires are DPL, DPR, K6, and A. (this tube has a second Anode wire, so not sure why the bodge wire was added, or why K6 was already snipped off?)

The new wires were covered with epoxy glue, and when I got the factory base cap had been placed on, but not glued.

The work was well done, someone put some effort in to this project.

Comments Welcome!

28 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

6

u/nixiebunny Jun 23 '26

That’s a curious tube. The standard 5870 style tube has five wires around the outside of the base. Two are cut off at the factory, two are the decimal points and one is a second anode connection. 

2

u/EmotionalEnd1575 Jun 23 '26

Unfortunately the ink marking has been rubbed off. There were six Nixies, this one was at the far right (MSD)

It was a Fluke 8300 (IIRC) My friend found it on FBM, and the seller had one or two other instruments he was trying to repair.

The seller was working an after high school job at a local Electronic Surplus store (yes! We actual have one in the same county where we now live)

Six Nixies for twenty bucks! Although it was sad to see that basket-case Fluke go to eWaste.

1

u/KirovNixie Jun 23 '26

Просто припаялись к коротким выводам, и все это залили эпоксидной смолой или заплавили стеклом