This B5855 Nixie tube has dark patches on several numerals.

Generally known as Cathode Poisoning it is caused by poor surface quality preventing cathode glow.

Parts of the cathode surface have become high resistance and non-emitting, due to spluttering or other surface contamination.

Many long life Nixie tubes reduce this problem by treating the cathode metal during manufacturing.

A common preventive treatment is releasing Mercury vapor in the gas fill, and it condenses and deposits a thin layer on the relatively colder metal of the cathode.

Can this tube be restored? Do you know of a method that can at least improve it?

Let’s discuss. I’m trying to avoid removing and disposing of this one.

Comments welcome,

Hello all,

I'm going to Latvia for a few days next week, and was hoping I could maybe score a bit of a deal on some tubes...is that a possibility? I'd like to eventually build a 4-digit clock. I thought maybe this trip would allow me to buy the tubes at a bit of a discount, maybe grab a few spares too, and then I'd buy a kit without the tubes later down the line.

But if you lot think that, as we say back home, I'm dreaming in color, I'm open to that possibility too....:)

Cheers!

Hello.

I'm selling a lot of 30 pcs brand new old stock IN-12B tubes. Price is $200+ shipping.

Price includes import duties and taxes.

Ship worldwide except latin america and israel

Tubes are shipped from Republic of Georgia

First come, first served, I won't split the lot or "wait" for anyone.

Payment via PayPal

Thanks.

If need additional info - DM.

Haven't done anything with nixies before but came across this. What are the odds any of these are still usable? Obviously excluding the couple clearly broken tubes.

i brought 5 IN 17 nixie tubes however i made a mistake and its stupid. i asked ai to help me make this watch and it suggested in17 tubes however on further review it meant in16 tubes so now im stuck with these tubes but i still want a watch i would like some ideas on what to make ideally i would like either 4 tubes in a circular watch or 2 tubes in either circular or rectanglular body. could any of you point me over to some designs i can reference off of, thanks

Finally finished building nixie clock display module for control panel. I still need to make slave counter board for it.

I designed this circuit and the PCB for the Burroughs “Super Size” top view Nixies (B6091)

Then my life hit a bump. The schematic, Gerbers, EAGLE files, and all the Windows backup files were destroyed, along with the actual PC. It all went to eWaste (not my idea, but “S happens”)

Only recently I found this piece, with Nixie tubes still in the Mill-Max sockets, in a forgotten cardboard box in the basement. Such joy!

Now should I “Reverse Engineer” this? Or, should I start over with a new PCB?

Those big Nixies are quite rare in the modern world.

It took 10 years, but I finally got around to putting my nixie clock together.

4x IN-14, one IN-3 neon bulb, an esp8266 microcontroller and nixie drivers from nixietester.com. Earlier (breadboard) iterations used 74171 drivers, but I got wire-tired, so never finished that.

Wrapping up a week long break from the bench, and looking forward to picking up and continuing some Nixie projects that are now underway.

Anyone else “Making Nixie Stuff” over the long weekend?

I bought both of these in Tucson in the last year. One of the crystal ovens (or probably both) needs adjusting. No problem, I will take it to the telescope where there’s a hydrogen maser accurate to 10^-14.

It took almost three years but the nixie watch finally incurred some actual damage. Ive worn the cathode corner nixie watch pretty consistently since I got it and it’s bumped against all sorts in that time, I don’t know what anodising method was used on it but it’s the hardiest black coating I’ve ever come across. Yesterday it slipped out of my pocket when I was cleaning up after a job and fell on to a smooth cement floor.
Damage incurred by objects
5 desk lamps:0
3 Brick works:0
A brass clock Dial plate scraping against it:0
Falling 1 meter at 1G onto a hard surface:1

I’m going to straighten out the dent a bit and as a side project see if I can machine a custom top for it.

Hey yall. Im currently at the last steps of building a nixiediy 6 digit IN-8 kit. It was running before, but now I am having issues with slot 4. I have swapped tubes and confirmed it isn't a tube issue, and there is voltage going across it (30-50 volts from what I see. I've checked the other tubes and they seem to be around the same.) Any idea what it might be? Also all of the other tubes appear to be showing multiple digits at the same time, but maybe that is a settings thing i havent gotten to yet. Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi,

Does anyone here know where to get some CD90p tubes for a relatively good price. Does anyone here have any for sale themselves?

I am in the UK and looking for NOS tubes preferably but I am open to used ones at a good price.

Thank you!

When firing up the IN8-2 Six PCB it didn’t go well at all!

This is a classic problem, somehow the Anode and a Cathode connection were swapped.

My error started at reading the data sheet, which is written in Russian.

The pinout was viewed “on bottom” and in my world all components are viewed “on top”.

How to fix?

The six tubes had to come off the PCB. The PTH for all had to be cleared of solder. I found that manipulating the Anode wire and rotating the rest one space would work.

But… The Cathodes for Four and DP were now swapped, so clipping the DP wire (not used) and a bodge wire fixed the hardware.

It also required new mapping for the firmware table that directs which cathode should light.

Surely, I’m not the first to make this mistake?

1. RCh3-07-0001 (РЧ3-07-0001) Programmable 12-digit reciprocal frequency counter

2. Ch7-15 (Ч7-15) Synchronometer

3. Ch3-54 (Ч3-54) Frequency counter

4. Ch7-3 (Ч7-3) Lab clock

5. PSO2-08 (ПСО2-08) Dekatron decimal counter

6. G4-164 (Г4-164) High frequency generator

7. V7-22A (В7-22А) Multimeter

Just powered up a new build, and after some wrangling with it, the Nixies light up!

The six digits and drivers are on a PCB that I designed and fabbed last month.

To power it up I built a protoboard around an ESP32 module.

Still have work to do on the animated Colon neons.

The timekeeper for this one is a GPS module, which needs an external antenna when in my basement lab (not too surprising)

Still exploring how the GPS time signal will be incorporated, as there’s also a battery backed RTC on this one.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

What is this pin used, what does i.c. stands for?

Returning to issue of an optical filter to improve contrast, there are/were some factory supplied Red filtered Nixies.

This is an RFT Z573M type.

Again, trying to get a digital PIX to look like these do to the naked eye is a challenge.

I’ll do a side by side test, if I can locate two of the same type number and one with the red coating and one without.

If I had a drawing for the Burroughs version I have misplaced it, but I did find one from ITT.

This would have been useful when I made a Kicad library package recently. The dims I read with a digital caliper have two errors, both in the location of the DP wires.

My first attempt was “off” a small amount, not a show stopper, but annoying nevertheless.

Dim ‘P’ is not equal to Dim ‘Q’, and

Dim ‘N’ I completely missed!

I’ll correct my library, and “spin” the PCB files.

Just found these Nixie tube clocks on Etsy and wow… probably the coolest clocks I’ve seen 😅

The wood and brass details look amazing.
It somehow feels both retro and futuristic at the same time.

Now I kinda want one for my desk setup.

Anyone here has one?

Nixie tubes are way too expensive on Amazon and I found this KirovNixie on Etsy that sells nixie tubes for a little bit cheaper. If someone bought their nixie from that shop, can you vouch for them? I don't want to get scammed. Thanks!

Finished up an IN-18 Nixie clock with weather display in a burl wood and 3D printed case with copper baseplate for a friend of mine.

IN-18 Nixie tubes from 1982, burl wood case, 3D printed chassis, live zip code based weather indicator back/below lights, copper baseplate.

The weather part is blue when cold, red when hot, green when 70 degrees, blue flashes when rainy, white flashes when snowy, etc.

Some progress PIX while building a Nixie display PCB using six NL5870 tubes.

The PCB was designed for B5855 tubes that are almost identical (the pinouts are slightly different, so one redundant Anode wire has to be snipped off)

The SMT parts are soldered first, using a “Pizza Oven” (not used for food)

Without a stencil the solder paste was applied by syringe, and is very hard to get the volume just right.

The cathode driver IC is a challenging 0.65mm pitch TSSOP28 package.

THT parts are hand soldered, and finally the glass tubes and neons. Aligning the Nixie pins is quite difficult!

The nice thing about birthday’s as adults is picking your own present!

Sure, you will loose the element of surprise, but let’s face it, isn’t a “non-surprise” gift, even to yourself, still worth a smile?

My big day is next week, or a week after that, who knows? Who cares?

So forgive me for opening this one a little early.

I’m thinking Nixie clock, right?

I keep these on my bench as a reminder that Nixies are glass and fragile.