I would like to say how impressed i am with your magic eye replacement the skill and quality of your work is very high ive been in electronics since the 70's and its rare to find someone still commited to solving an old problem with a new idea thank you for sharing
How much would someone pay for a refurbished magic eye? How rare are they getting? Im going to get into glass blowing somehow, I’m wondering if it might be a viable business along with other scientific glass
The problem is, there is no ready made "bargraph chip" for that functionality, so you would need to design it from discrete transistors (that may allow to supply the LEDs in series from the B+, so also work in circuits with filament supply at some weird potential). A solution also could be to use an MCU with an ADC and do these effects in the firmware, but then there is the complexity of writing the firmware. Either way it would make the project way more complicated and even becoming out of reach for many people looking for such replacements.
@@annaplojharova1400 I did it with the LM3914 and LM3915 bargraph chips back in the late '70s when I was in high school. I had my first car wired up like a spaceship, with bargraphs that would smoothly shade from one LED to the next. It just took an Op Amp generating a sawtooth. This would PWM an LED gradually from 0 to 100% as the signal rose. Now, if you use a microcontroller, you just use PWM to shade one LED to the next.
@@AlienRelics I agree, I think it even does not have to be exactly triangular. Heck even the 50/60Hz sinewave from the heater circuit, superimposed via some resistor would do the job...
@Anna Plojharová the more it departs from a linear triangle or sawtooth, the less linear it is between LED steps. If you use a square wave at the correct level, you can get distinct half-steps.
@@AlienRelics Yes, it is not that perfect, but unlike the sawtooth, the sine is readily available at the socket, with just one single extra resistor to couple it in. Yet giving still better effect than "just two levels" of the rectangle. In fact I would bet, you would not see any difference between the sinewave vs real triangle, unless both running really directly side-by-side to each other.
Looks pretty good. We had one of these in a hi-fi when I was a kid. I was very cool. And I loved the deep hush the hi-fi made while the tubes were warming up.
Very nice work. If I was so motivated, I might have tried your clever project - but I'm driven by bucks, so no.. Anyway, I would try picking up a scrap Samsung QLED TV and see if the embedded "quantum dots" in the diffuser sheets between the display and the LED back light might work giving you a better black in the unlit areas of your eye. The LEDs themselves would need to be native blue. If that works - you're welcome. If not, well, you get what you pay for!! 😆
Pure, pure ingenious circuit! I remember as a kid, seeing these on Grundig, Telefunkin, and I think Blaupunkt German SW radios. Very well done! Would look good on my old Hallicrafter SX99 receiver. Just wonderful.
Great job. The implementation and the final result are quite impressive. Definitely simpler than solutions based on LCD's. Analog solutions are always better to be used in radio applications.
@@KlodFather but this bargraph just has so much less resolution than an LCD would, and an LCD is already far inferior to the original. And that tiny indistinguishable from thermal noise amount of noise?
@@ABaumstumpf ig its about the look and feel, first thing its kinda hard to find that small circular lcd's, and leds tend to look much nicer, for example im working on a led pixel art display and individual leds just look way nicer then having a display
@@ShahZahid true - most displays you can buy are not that bright, and good ones are readily available but they cost a pretty penny. but for this application where they are used as a display-device to finetune a system i'd rather have 10x resolution and more faded colors (i mean the tubes also have rather pale colors so wouldnt even look that out of place).
Nice! I have an old Grundig radio that uses one of these tubes as its tuning display. I had the radio refurbished several years ago and I recall that the gentleman who did it for me let me know that the tube would be quite expensive to acquire. I bought an extra to hold in reserve.
Given the choice, I'd want a real magic eye... but... like you say, we don't really have that choice any more... and this looks like a pretty good substitute.
I had a multi-band receiver with a tuning eye. I got it at a hamfest when floppy disks were a thing. I was about 18 I think. I decided to set up a quarter wave antenna by stringing a wire around my room. When I was ready, I didn't have a PL259 connector, so I just coiled up a bit of the single-strand wire and shoved it into the antenna port. I shocked the living crap out of myself. That cured me of operating equipment with vacuum tubes that operate at ridiculous voltages. But I do miss the tuning eye! My tuning eye was quite blue, maybe closer to blue than to green.
What a brilliant idea! I'm sure there will be many thinking "why didn't I think of it first?" And since it's l.e.d.s inside, there's no reason why one shouldn't just use a plastic transparent tube for the housing. A brand new octal base can be had from various sources. A different style base would engage some minor d.i.y. - taking all the necessary high voltage safe design principles into consideration of course.
Thanks for sharing this excellent creation. I think no diffuser is an excellent option ..you know it's not the original, so enjoy the modern. It looks really cool , great job
I did a display using the LM part years ago. One addition was to add a bit of 60Hz hum to the IN signal, just enough to blur (turn on the adjacent LEDs. It made the transitions between LEDs smooth and would perhaps eliminate the need for a diffuser. Since this is a tube replacement, the 60Hz before rectification can be tapped for the necessary signal- with a one wire and resistor addition.
2:26 Watching this schematics I have noticed that it matters which of the 2 filament connectors in the socket (1 or 6) is connected to the ground in that particular radio or amplifier in which the replacement is going to be used because the pin marked as 6U5-Vfil has to land in the connector that is supplying 6.3V AC and not in the ground connector.
Good observation. However, the most recent version has a fully differential input. See rabjohn.ca/data/documents/6E5_Composite_Schematic_V2.jpg . The preferred connection would be to have Vfil_Cold go to ground and Vfil_Hot go to 6.3V. In this case, there would be no common mode voltage on Grid and Cathode. However, if Vfil_Hot and Vfil_Cold are reversed, (the rectifier diode is grounded and the "ground" is at 6.3VAC), everything will still work because the Grid and Cathode input is fully differential. There will be 6.3VAC common mode voltage (wrt to the "ground", say pin 2 of the IC) into these pins, but the differential input rejects this common mode voltage. This is an important feature if you want to use the SS6E5 in radios that ground the centre tap of the 6.3V filament winding, because they have 3VAC of common mode voltage into Grid and Cathode.
I want to hate .. but it's the nicest and most refined one of these I've seen with the diffuser. Nice work. I built a set of 'nonsense' instruments for my bus (just for the sake of fancy lights) .. Throttle position with a 6E5, and a barely proportional 'wheels go round' indicator with a decatron. I would use one of these for that, and I might even line them up across the cluster .. but no matter how good you eventually get this to look - too much of a snob purist to ever put it in a full tube circuit.
Very Nice Work. I have a New in Box, Magic Eye, wanted to put it to use someday. Repaired TV/Electronics since the 70's. Was more into Guitar Electronics, I used Op Amps. I Used 2 9 Volt Batteries. Plus and a minus tied to each other made ground, then you would have 9 Volts Positive and a Negative 9 volts. Great for Filters and Clean Amplification from Common Mode Rejection. Good work. Leaving a Thumbs up. Stratmando
This video reminds me of a question/thought/idea I had years ago. I will pass it on to you as you seem to have the skills. Why not make solid-state work-alike plug-in replacements for as many tubes as possible? This would allow people to resurrect those lovely old tube radios. Next step: Replace them with low-voltage look-alikes and replace the dangerous 2000V transformer with a 12-volt transformer. Looks and works the same but MUCH safer! Just add a burning-dust-smell emitter. lol
That was being done when I was a boy back in the '70s. The output stages were the problem. Lower voltage means a LOT more current to get the same power. High voltage, high current transistors were not common, and expensive.
I'm not from this space of radio gear usually, but was drawn by that great comparison shot at the end. If you're still thinking of a diffusion layer, a pair of thin foggy bits of acrylic with a small space (5mm?) in between should smooth out the light even more.
There were several requests to look at adding dithering to make the transitions seem smoother. This is quite easy to do: I added a 20pF capacitor between pin 3 of the LM358 and the FilH pin. This adds 60Hz (or 50Hz) "hum" which is effectively dither. The result is a smoother display, for sure, and is not difficult to add. Note that it will inject some hum back into the host radio, but I do not expect this to be a problem most of the time.
I have since made a 6T5 replacement as well. Details for both the 6U5 and 6T5 projects are on the project web site rabjohn.ca/gord/ss6e5/ . Unpopulated circuit boards are available.
Love it. I wonder if you could improve the sharpness with a custom radial lenticular lens under the diffuser. The only thing will be a more obvious jump from one level to the next. Another thought is to use an oiled screen rather than discrete leds. I wonder if there are any watch screens small enough.
Now I wonder what our old Telefunken Concertino used. Rather than a circular display on the top of the tube, the Telefunken had a vertical tuning display with bars coming from both the top and bottom. I could probably look at the one in the radio, but I'm hesitant to try and work on *anything* in the radio now (I don't think it's been turned on in 25-30 years, and from watching Mr Carlson's Lab I know it peobably is full of bad capacitors by now)
@@gordrabjohn7039 EM84 was used in early audio tape recorders as recording level meter. All electronics was also made with vacuum tubes - one ECC88 (as preamp) and one ECL86 (as power amplifier).
Great project! I know everybody has an opinion, but since you said the diffuser was still a work in progress.... Sooo... I wonder if the diffuser could be a translucent material with a but of glow in the dark capabilities? Perhaps the use of UV leds shining through the diffuser to color shift the magic eye. I painted something once with glow in the dark spray paint and hit it with UV leds and it gave that same greenish magic eye glow
Your UV led idea has merits. The afterglow time could be an issue though. I wonder if the phosphorous used in tv tubes reacts at all to UV, it does react to strong flashlights with afterglow times under a second.
@@juslitor there are UV reactive pigments tuned to specific UV depths. However, paper and yellow highlighter should fluoresce well and give no persistency.
Давно мечтал собрать радиолампы с различными блоками внутри, усилитель, fm радио, mp3, и собрать из них ретро радио. И самое интересное, флешку в форме радио лампы!)) Ех, то времени не хватает, то денег , а теперь ещё и война...
There are circular colour LCD screens made for smartwatches and similar gadgets which might do this job though I doubt they're close to the brightness of this. Finding one that doesn't have a tab at the bottom edge of the screen seems to be a challenge.
As a collector of antique radios I would love to be able to Purchase one. These are really beautiful. I see the schematics but every time I work with IC Chips I screw up something.
Great work, but still gives me an appreciating of the beauty of continuous analog technology. I also wonder if the LED version would appear smoother, if you would dim the LEDs on the edge before turning full on or off.
Can you get ahold of a smart-watch display? I'm guessing you could fit a pi zero or some such and program it with all kinds of crazy display mimicry, with any color you like! Make the outer shell be the top of a pushbutton to switch between different modes. Numeric, magic eye, or a different kind of magic eye, or cycle between modes. You can do a lot with a single pushbutton.
It does not use a clock or a switching supply, so should not cause any EMI issues, and I have not noticed any in the radios I have used it in. There is a rectifier on the filament supply, and I suppose a harmonic of 60Hz could cause a buzz, but I have not noticed that.
It's used to assist a radio listener to manually tune into the frequency of the chosen broadcasting station. Manual tuning is normally done by listening to the output (usually speech or music being transmitted by Medium wave or Short Wave broadcasters on a particular frequency). Unfortunately there is usually some distortion of the audio sound, interference from other broadcasters and static from thunderstorms and passing road traffic that makes it difficult for the listener to decide where the "sweet spot" is for the best quality signal output from the radio speaker. The *_"MagicEye"_* vacuum tube helps the listener select the tuning-position by adding a visual cue, where the smallest adjustments of the tuner are reflected in _visual representations of signal-strength._ As a small boy listening to Short-Wave broadcasts in the 1950's, I was lucky enough to have the use of a radio receiver equipped with one of these devices built into the front panel. It was a pleasure to have such visual assistance whilst tuning into a broadcast.
In addition to the other reasons mentioned: 1) Some people would prefer to have a working device with some anachronistic parts (I have not heard similar arguments from purists regarding replacement of paper capacitors with modern equivalents less likely to kill the rest of the device) rather than a non-functional device. Yes, this would alter the appearance of the device, but again do you want something that is once again functional or do you want a rather heavy and large paperweight? The quantity of new old stock tubes is finite and since they have not been produced in decades even if you purchase one that was tested to be functional there is absolutely no guarantee it will survive as long as the original tubes had survived. Tubes salvaged from other units are potentially even less reliable and may commit that unit to the scrap metal yard. 2) Nobody currently makes new tubes of this type and if the market for current production of tubes has any predictive value for the market for even less frequently-used tubes like this then it would make repair of devices with this tube insanely cost-prohibitive and such pieces would be better used as an occasionally-operated museum piece than a daily-use instrument as they were originally intended. Would newly-manufactured tubes be ideal? Sure. Maybe you would be willing to do what Dalibor Farny has done with Nixie tubes, spend years doing R&D, and set up your own shop. He had the advantage of some original technical drawings and some manufacturing data, yet it still took him two years to bring out a newly-produced tube. Have you seen the cost of his tubes? They are not priced like vacuum tubes. They are priced like hand-crafted industrial art pieces that also function as vacuum tubes, and to be honest that is what they are.
Amazing ! ... compared with how ( VERY simple ) the circuitry is for the vacuum tube , also the green is more pleasant with the LED version , but I will stick with my vacuum tube ! ....... DAVE™ ..............
I would like to say how impressed i am with your magic eye replacement the skill and quality of your work is very high ive been in electronics since the 70's and its rare to find someone still commited to solving an old problem with a new idea thank you for sharing
How much would someone pay for a refurbished magic eye? How rare are they getting? Im going to get into glass blowing somehow, I’m wondering if it might be a viable business along with other scientific glass
Fabulous! The real genius of you design is how simple it is and yet is still a drop-in replacement for the original!
This is absolutely delightful. Just no better way to say it. Knowing folks are out there keeping these types of experiences accessable makes my day!
Have you thought about adding a half-step of brightness? It will give it a more analog, gradual look.
The problem is, there is no ready made "bargraph chip" for that functionality, so you would need to design it from discrete transistors (that may allow to supply the LEDs in series from the B+, so also work in circuits with filament supply at some weird potential). A solution also could be to use an MCU with an ADC and do these effects in the firmware, but then there is the complexity of writing the firmware. Either way it would make the project way more complicated and even becoming out of reach for many people looking for such replacements.
@@annaplojharova1400 I did it with the LM3914 and LM3915 bargraph chips back in the late '70s when I was in high school. I had my first car wired up like a spaceship, with bargraphs that would smoothly shade from one LED to the next. It just took an Op Amp generating a sawtooth. This would PWM an LED gradually from 0 to 100% as the signal rose.
Now, if you use a microcontroller, you just use PWM to shade one LED to the next.
@@AlienRelics I agree, I think it even does not have to be exactly triangular. Heck even the 50/60Hz sinewave from the heater circuit, superimposed via some resistor would do the job...
@Anna Plojharová the more it departs from a linear triangle or sawtooth, the less linear it is between LED steps. If you use a square wave at the correct level, you can get distinct half-steps.
@@AlienRelics Yes, it is not that perfect, but unlike the sawtooth, the sine is readily available at the socket, with just one single extra resistor to couple it in. Yet giving still better effect than "just two levels" of the rectangle. In fact I would bet, you would not see any difference between the sinewave vs real triangle, unless both running really directly side-by-side to each other.
Thanks for the excellent solution to the lack of supply of these rare magic eye tubes. 👍👍
Thanks for your work on this! We really need magic eye replacement tubes and this is a HUGE step in just the right direction.
Looks pretty good. We had one of these in a hi-fi when I was a kid. I was very cool. And I loved the deep hush the hi-fi made while the tubes were warming up.
Very nice work. If I was so motivated, I might have tried your clever project - but I'm driven by bucks, so no.. Anyway, I would try picking up a scrap Samsung QLED TV and see if the embedded "quantum dots" in the diffuser sheets between the display and the LED back light might work giving you a better black in the unlit areas of your eye. The LEDs themselves would need to be native blue. If that works - you're welcome. If not, well, you get what you pay for!! 😆
Pure, pure ingenious circuit! I remember as a kid, seeing these on Grundig, Telefunkin, and I think Blaupunkt German SW radios. Very well done! Would look good on my old Hallicrafter
SX99 receiver. Just wonderful.
Great job. The implementation and the final result are quite impressive. Definitely simpler than solutions based on LCD's. Analog solutions are always better to be used in radio applications.
Why is analog better? I Feel like you could achieve higher resolution with an LCD, if you could get a circular one
@@SpaghettiEnterprises - RFI from digital controllers... noise
@@KlodFather but this bargraph just has so much less resolution than an LCD would, and an LCD is already far inferior to the original.
And that tiny indistinguishable from thermal noise amount of noise?
@@ABaumstumpf ig its about the look and feel, first thing its kinda hard to find that small circular lcd's, and leds tend to look much nicer, for example im working on a led pixel art display and individual leds just look way nicer then having a display
@@ShahZahid true - most displays you can buy are not that bright, and good ones are readily available but they cost a pretty penny. but for this application where they are used as a display-device to finetune a system i'd rather have 10x resolution and more faded colors (i mean the tubes also have rather pale colors so wouldnt even look that out of place).
Nice! I have an old Grundig radio that uses one of these tubes as its tuning display. I had the radio refurbished several years ago and I recall that the gentleman who did it for me let me know that the tube would be quite expensive to acquire. I bought an extra to hold in reserve.
Given the choice, I'd want a real magic eye... but... like you say, we don't really have that choice any more... and this looks like a pretty good substitute.
I had a multi-band receiver with a tuning eye. I got it at a hamfest when floppy disks were a thing. I was about 18 I think. I decided to set up a quarter wave antenna by stringing a wire around my room. When I was ready, I didn't have a PL259 connector, so I just coiled up a bit of the single-strand wire and shoved it into the antenna port. I shocked the living crap out of myself. That cured me of operating equipment with vacuum tubes that operate at ridiculous voltages. But I do miss the tuning eye!
My tuning eye was quite blue, maybe closer to blue than to green.
This is a very cool implementation. I don't have anything to use it on right now, but I will definitely keep it in mind.
What a brilliant idea! I'm sure there will be many thinking "why didn't I think of it first?"
And since it's l.e.d.s inside, there's no reason why one shouldn't just use a plastic transparent tube for the housing. A brand new octal base can be had from various sources. A different style base would engage some minor d.i.y. - taking all the necessary high voltage safe design principles into consideration of course.
Nice, intricate work! Also, thanks for introducing me to the LM3915. In the past, I'd used a ladder of resistors and comparators to get that effect.
I have no idea what a magic eye even is or what any of this is about but looks cool and TH-cam recommended it for some reason
Very nicely done.... IMHO The bare LED's look great. I love the fusion old and new technology as an art form.
Thanks for sharing this excellent creation. I think no diffuser is an excellent option ..you know it's not the original, so enjoy the modern. It looks really cool , great job
It's a good option. Not smooth as tube but still usable. Thanks for showing this work.
Gord, this is cool stuff. You were just posted on YT in an electronics group. Thanks for sharing!
I did a display using the LM part years ago. One addition was to add a bit of 60Hz hum to the IN signal, just enough to blur (turn on the adjacent LEDs. It made the transitions between LEDs smooth and would perhaps eliminate the need for a diffuser. Since this is a tube replacement, the 60Hz before rectification can be tapped for the necessary signal- with a one wire and resistor addition.
Exactly.
This is genius. A wonderful solution for when the originals are no more.
I love this alot, I have been looking into finding a modern magic eye replacement.
2:26 Watching this schematics I have noticed that it matters which of the 2 filament connectors in the socket (1 or 6) is connected to the ground in that particular radio or amplifier in which the replacement is going to be used because the pin marked as 6U5-Vfil has to land in the connector that is supplying 6.3V AC and not in the ground connector.
Good observation. However, the most recent version has a fully differential input. See rabjohn.ca/data/documents/6E5_Composite_Schematic_V2.jpg . The preferred connection would be to have Vfil_Cold go to ground and Vfil_Hot go to 6.3V. In this case, there would be no common mode voltage on Grid and Cathode. However, if Vfil_Hot and Vfil_Cold are reversed, (the rectifier diode is grounded and the "ground" is at 6.3VAC), everything will still work because the Grid and Cathode input is fully differential. There will be 6.3VAC common mode voltage (wrt to the "ground", say pin 2 of the IC) into these pins, but the differential input rejects this common mode voltage. This is an important feature if you want to use the SS6E5 in radios that ground the centre tap of the 6.3V filament winding, because they have 3VAC of common mode voltage into Grid and Cathode.
I want to hate .. but it's the nicest and most refined one of these I've seen with the diffuser. Nice work.
I built a set of 'nonsense' instruments for my bus (just for the sake of fancy lights) .. Throttle position with a 6E5, and a barely proportional 'wheels go round' indicator with a decatron. I would use one of these for that, and I might even line them up across the cluster .. but no matter how good you eventually get this to look - too much of a snob purist to ever put it in a full tube circuit.
Very Nice Work. I have a New in Box, Magic Eye, wanted to put it to use someday. Repaired TV/Electronics since the 70's. Was more into Guitar Electronics, I used Op Amps. I Used 2 9 Volt Batteries. Plus and a minus tied to each other made ground, then you would have 9 Volts Positive and a Negative 9 volts. Great for Filters and Clean Amplification from Common Mode Rejection.
Good work. Leaving a Thumbs up.
Stratmando
This video reminds me of a question/thought/idea I had years ago. I will pass it on to you as you seem to have the skills. Why not make solid-state work-alike plug-in replacements for as many tubes as possible? This would allow people to resurrect those lovely old tube radios.
Next step: Replace them with low-voltage look-alikes and replace the dangerous 2000V transformer with a 12-volt transformer. Looks and works the same but MUCH safer! Just add a burning-dust-smell emitter. lol
That was being done when I was a boy back in the '70s. The output stages were the problem. Lower voltage means a LOT more current to get the same power. High voltage, high current transistors were not common, and expensive.
I'm not from this space of radio gear usually, but was drawn by that great comparison shot at the end. If you're still thinking of a diffusion layer, a pair of thin foggy bits of acrylic with a small space (5mm?) in between should smooth out the light even more.
It would be interesting to try blue LEDs and a diffuser with green phosphor.
or UV LED
UV light is cool, but is harmful for the eyes.
I think you mean UV LEDs and a green phosphor.
Very cool. Simple implementation of common chips too. Great job.
This is so cool. I aspire to make cool retrofit projects like this :)
There were several requests to look at adding dithering to make the transitions seem smoother. This is quite easy to do: I added a 20pF capacitor between pin 3 of the LM358 and the FilH pin. This adds 60Hz (or 50Hz) "hum" which is effectively dither. The result is a smoother display, for sure, and is not difficult to add. Note that it will inject some hum back into the host radio, but I do not expect this to be a problem most of the time.
I have since made a 6T5 replacement as well. Details for both the 6U5 and 6T5 projects are on the project web site rabjohn.ca/gord/ss6e5/ . Unpopulated circuit boards are available.
Love it. I wonder if you could improve the sharpness with a custom radial lenticular lens under the diffuser. The only thing will be a more obvious jump from one level to the next.
Another thought is to use an oiled screen rather than discrete leds. I wonder if there are any watch screens small enough.
Ywahhh OLED.s
Nice replacement. If anything, I would love to use both. But that's how I always am, I like using all technology.
Looks good! Another option would be an round 1.18" OLED display and a microcontroller.
That's amazing. I hope Mr Carlson's Lab checks out your video.
Loved those magic eyes. I remember building a heath kit something or other meter with one of those.
Now I wonder what our old Telefunken Concertino used. Rather than a circular display on the top of the tube, the Telefunken had a vertical tuning display with bars coming from both the top and bottom. I could probably look at the one in the radio, but I'm hesitant to try and work on *anything* in the radio now (I don't think it's been turned on in 25-30 years, and from watching Mr Carlson's Lab I know it peobably is full of bad capacitors by now)
That would be an EM84 or EM87 tube
@@gordrabjohn7039 EM84 was used in early audio tape recorders as recording level meter. All electronics was also made with vacuum tubes - one ECC88 (as preamp) and one ECL86 (as power amplifier).
I like it without the diffuser !! Elegant looking !
Very nice looking magic eye project. Thanks
Would be interesting to see if there is a small round amoled display for smart watches or something similar that would fit this use case.
Great project! I know everybody has an opinion, but since you said the diffuser was still a work in progress.... Sooo... I wonder if the diffuser could be a translucent material with a but of glow in the dark capabilities? Perhaps the use of UV leds shining through the diffuser to color shift the magic eye. I painted something once with glow in the dark spray paint and hit it with UV leds and it gave that same greenish magic eye glow
Your UV led idea has merits. The afterglow time could be an issue though. I wonder if the phosphorous used in tv tubes reacts at all to UV, it does react to strong flashlights with afterglow times under a second.
@@juslitor there are UV reactive pigments tuned to specific UV depths. However, paper and yellow highlighter should fluoresce well and give no persistency.
Very clever. I have a 1937 Philco console radio that has a magic eye tuner.
Well done. Quite a good replacement.
Great, but what we Really need is newly manufactured fluorescent indicator tubes.
Someone should get on with that endeavour.
Давно мечтал собрать радиолампы с различными блоками внутри, усилитель, fm радио, mp3, и собрать из них ретро радио. И самое интересное, флешку в форме радио лампы!)) Ех, то времени не хватает, то денег , а теперь ещё и война...
There are circular colour LCD screens made for smartwatches and similar gadgets which might do this job though I doubt they're close to the brightness of this. Finding one that doesn't have a tab at the bottom edge of the screen seems to be a challenge.
As a collector of antique radios I would love to be able to Purchase one. These are really beautiful. I see the schematics but every time I work with IC Chips I screw up something.
This is quite cool. Great job and implementation.
Great work, but still gives me an appreciating of the beauty of continuous analog technology. I also wonder if the LED version would appear smoother, if you would dim the LEDs on the edge before turning full on or off.
Beautiful work.
Great idea.
Great job and implementation.
Steve, amazing... not even a processor is needed...
That's great. I think the issue is that the 3915 is now obsolete and very difficult to find 😕
These and Nixie tubes. Love 'em.
Outstanding design and work!!
What is you used leds projecting from above on a concave brushed aluminium mirror? Less leds ofcourse, but no need for a diffuser.
Where is the glowing filament? It was the magic of the combination of green and the color of the glow that fascinated.
I don't know anything about this thing, but it looks cool!
What a fantastic job!
What are these magic eyes used from nowdays?
What about UV leds and phosphor paint?
You can use yellow highlighter
I've been wanting a replacement in event mine goes bad. thanks!
wondering if a servo would give more precision
Can you get ahold of a smart-watch display? I'm guessing you could fit a pi zero or some such and program it with all kinds of crazy display mimicry, with any color you like! Make the outer shell be the top of a pushbutton to switch between different modes. Numeric, magic eye, or a different kind of magic eye, or cycle between modes. You can do a lot with a single pushbutton.
Back in the 60s we had a console stereo, we always called it " the cat's eye "
Looks really clean.
how can i get this product ?
Don't they sell round tiny oled screens?
Nah. The tuning indicators are so cool. I'm hoping someone starts building them!
i was wondering in using a circular oled for this
Nice - i heard about magic ete here for the very first time i think - were was it used earlier? is it just a kind of percentage "graph" bar?
The choice of material for the diffuser might improve the quality of the diffraction. Trying different plastic parents might produce better results.
This is cool !! Great video. But, I'm wondereing if the circuits and the L.E.D.'s would introduce noise to the reciever that it's mounted in.
It does not use a clock or a switching supply, so should not cause any EMI issues, and I have not noticed any in the radios I have used it in. There is a rectifier on the filament supply, and I suppose a harmonic of 60Hz could cause a buzz, but I have not noticed that.
Could not do some kind of backlit liquid crystal display?
Very cool. I may be in the market for some soon.
Its always the low quality videos that are amazing
Very cool and you sound like Jeff Goldblum.
Dunno what magic eye is but damn the analog version looks so cool. Maybe some dithering techniques could further smoothen out the SSD one. 🤔
Старинный ламповый индикатор.
This looks awesome!
Hello, where can i buy this? Is it possible to connect it to power or USB?
Gord, where did you find this transparent plastic cover that covers the circuit? What did you remove it from?
It is actually glass, taken from a dead 6U5. I carefully cut the glass at the base.
Hola,que utilizas para controlar los Led's un circuito integrado de vu meter?
Yes, a LM3914 / LM3915 / LM3916 bar graph IC.
@@gordrabjohn7039 Nice Job! I guess the rest of the job is to be patient and group the leds so that they light up in groups. Thank's for the info.
Is it possible to get a suitable 6 pin male connector so as not to have to find a tube to sacrifice?
I am not aware of a source of 6 pin male connectors compatible with tube sockets. Old tubes are my only source.
They simply aren't made any more, haven't been for decades. Not enough demand for someone to restart making them.
Easy to replicate.
Just get wires the right dimension, a pipe made of paper and pour any epoxy or JB Weld.
Quite an interesting project :)
PWM for dithering would be a nice one to add
Or using the number of LED's lit up in a row for intensity
Don't the discrete steps completely defeat the purpose of an analog tuner display?
Nice work. Too bad it's not available for purchase..
Amazing. please give update whatever you have like this. Thank you so much.
noob question here: what is it used in? and what for?
It's used to assist a radio listener to manually tune into the frequency of the chosen broadcasting station. Manual tuning is normally done by listening to the output (usually speech or music being transmitted by Medium wave or Short Wave broadcasters on a particular frequency).
Unfortunately there is usually some distortion of the audio sound, interference from other broadcasters and static from thunderstorms and passing road traffic that makes it difficult for the listener to decide where the "sweet spot" is for the best quality signal output from the radio speaker.
The *_"MagicEye"_* vacuum tube helps the listener select the tuning-position by adding a visual cue, where the smallest adjustments of the tuner are reflected in _visual representations of signal-strength._
As a small boy listening to Short-Wave broadcasts in the 1950's, I was lucky enough to have the use of a radio receiver equipped with one of these devices built into the front panel. It was a pleasure to have such visual assistance whilst tuning into a broadcast.
Wow, very cool! Op amps confuse the hell out of me.
Why on earth would you want to replace it with solid state, those tubes are awesome! I wonder if you could just re-pull the vacuum on broke tubes?
Because the original wear out or get broken.
In addition to the other reasons mentioned: 1) Some people would prefer to have a working device with some anachronistic parts (I have not heard similar arguments from purists regarding replacement of paper capacitors with modern equivalents less likely to kill the rest of the device) rather than a non-functional device. Yes, this would alter the appearance of the device, but again do you want something that is once again functional or do you want a rather heavy and large paperweight? The quantity of new old stock tubes is finite and since they have not been produced in decades even if you purchase one that was tested to be functional there is absolutely no guarantee it will survive as long as the original tubes had survived. Tubes salvaged from other units are potentially even less reliable and may commit that unit to the scrap metal yard. 2) Nobody currently makes new tubes of this type and if the market for current production of tubes has any predictive value for the market for even less frequently-used tubes like this then it would make repair of devices with this tube insanely cost-prohibitive and such pieces would be better used as an occasionally-operated museum piece than a daily-use instrument as they were originally intended. Would newly-manufactured tubes be ideal? Sure. Maybe you would be willing to do what Dalibor Farny has done with Nixie tubes, spend years doing R&D, and set up your own shop. He had the advantage of some original technical drawings and some manufacturing data, yet it still took him two years to bring out a newly-produced tube. Have you seen the cost of his tubes? They are not priced like vacuum tubes. They are priced like hand-crafted industrial art pieces that also function as vacuum tubes, and to be honest that is what they are.
Looks great - do you sell these?
@@eur1gys I sell the unpopulated boards, but not fully assembled assemblies. There are full instructions on my web site. Cheers!
Very cool great job man!!
What do you even use this tube for?
It was used as tuning indicator in old radios. When you got right on the station the eye closed up
Amazing ! ... compared with how ( VERY simple ) the circuitry is for the vacuum tube , also the green is more pleasant with the LED version , but I will stick with my vacuum tube ! ....... DAVE™ ..............
I liked these tubes....
Maybe a circular OLED display would be a better idea..? It's more complicated than normal Leds, but it offers much better resolution