Making: Huge Nixie Tube Finally Glowing! - Project H #19
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- This is the second prototype build of the H-tube, I fixed several issues from the first build - especially the front window sealing made me soo much happy as the seal is so beautiful. The fun will continue as there are still many issues to solve :-)
NEWSLETTER
► www.daliborfar...
WEBSITE
► www.daliborfar...
INSTAGRAM
► / daliborfarny
FACEBOOK
► / daliborfarnycom
Hi! Thank you sooo much for the positivity and constructive attitude - not only it helps me to get closer to the working H tube, but it is also incredibly motivating. In these gloomy autumn days, it is especially important ;-)
We got much good advice here in the comments, I want to underline some:
It was suggested that the insulating layer of the ceramics of the Ceramawire is not thick enough to bring the potential below striking (or better maintaining) voltage level. So, the potential at the surface of the wire is still enough to strike and/or keep the glow running. That was expected, what is a real issue is that the ceramic coating is porous, allowing the electrons to escape from the underlying wire despite the dielectric strength of the insulation layer was not exceeded. Just a small quantity of free electrons is enough to keep the glow running as they produce new free electrons from the gas molecules itself.
The idea is to study these processes more in-depth and make another video about it soon.
Thank you for your support!
Do you plan on making more of these? I may be willing to buy some
You are a very motivated person and a talented engineer. A professional in his field. You will succeed)
I have a question about the gas, that you fill your tubes with: Do you a radioactive starting aid like kr-85, or do these tubes purely rely on the high voltage for ionisation? I know a lot of smaller neon lamps (often used in switches) do use radioactive substances to help them start at voltages of
@@RayRayGaming-xb3pz Yes, the H tube will become our product one day, once all the issues are solved!
@@unmountablebootvolume We dont use anything radioactive, it is not necessary - the tubes strike reliably.
"this is why I love TH-cam... you get access to people who are 10 times smarter than you..."
... or alternatively, you get the idiotic nonsense that I put in the comments section.
Beautiful self deprecating humor good sir! Have a nice day ^^
Who said it wasn't sarcasm?
Regarding the glow of the ceramawire:
A common way to test insulated wires is to place them in water (with some salt) while having the wire ends above water. Then measure the insulation resistance from the conductor to the water. If there are any cracks or holes in the insulation you get a short to the water.
If the ceramawire fail this test it proves the insulation is cracked or faulty.
That's a great suggestion, Richard! I'm sorry the ceramawire didn't prevent a plasma from forming. Perhaps it's caused by tiny cracks that are not a problem when using the ceramic insulation to prevent physical contact between the wire and nearby conductors. But in a conductive plasma... It's another story. Thanks so much, Dalibor, for documenting your work! It's really fascinating to watch, and we are all so happy to see first light from the tube!
dipping it in mercury would be better test of insulation, but little bit more hazardous
@@yoppindia I am almost sure mercury will not help. It has extremely high surface tension in contact with air. It is highly probable that the surface tension with ceramics is also very high. Mercury would not wet it and would not get into the small cracks.
@ I had read a book about transformer in which they showed a way to test enamelled copper wire for cracks. All it need is to touch the wire with mercury and you will get open cracked enamel by passing a current through copper wire and mercury. Infact there are switches which are used to detect position using mercury. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_switch
Nice test, didnt think about it - will do for sure, thank you!
I've been watching for a couple of years at your work, but now you really took my breath away. Good luck and best regards from Belarus!
Nixie tubes have a beauty and aura that is unmatched by anything else. Something about them is just mesmerizing.
This video was amazing! Riveting from start to finish! Thank you for sharing your challenges and progress with us. Ever since I found your business a few years ago, I was worried it would disappear, and the art would be lost again. But watching this, I know that the artisan spirit is not dead. Thank you.
Hi! Great to see that big thing glowing! My heart jumped about as much as yours when you knocked that stem off! I've done the same thing! Now, on the glowing connecting wires. You already know the painting the ceramic glue on the wire. Too tedious for production of course. What I have tried is stretching some tubing to make a very thin fine capillary that the wire barely fits through. This can be easily bent to shape while assembling the tube using a very small tip torch. The glue can be used to fix any small spots. I worry about residual stress in the front window that might not crack the glass until winter. I just finished a CRT with a 3 inch window. It sealed perfectly but several days later it had cracked.
Few have the tooling and equipment to take on such a challenge. Even fewer have the necessary skills and knowledge to make these tubes. Excellent work sir.
I really appreciate you sharing your learning and methods with us. The fact that you have to create so much of the tooling for what you do is impressive. It can be very inspirational too, considering how much 3d printing and CAD work your doing these days. Which has become so accessible to the everyday public.
Dalibor: I bought hydraulic press for Nixie tubes prototyping.
Audience: The best hydraulic press channel is born!
I as everyone else am a very big fan of your craftsmanship, I'm using your tubes in a unit I built & can't wait for these H-Tubes be available for purchase.
Thank you so very much !
That much labour, trial and error, dedication, craftsmanship, knowledge and all that for a single tube. (This tube should be so proud!!!!!)
I really liked your first video, and ofcourse this video, I hope I can find your tubes in the future....
It is awesome what you do here, really! Thanks for your beautiful work!
Great progress! Wellfobe Dalibor! Will keep my fingers crossed for you.
So frickin' awesome Dalibor that new double line cathode is amazing!!! It looks so awesome. You did it man!!!
Thank you for these. They are honest, enjoyable, educational and thoroughly fascinating.
Your patience and persistence is inspiring !
Here you have it glowing ! Great perseverance for a great success. Congrats !
Well done Dalibor!!! This is significant milestone towards your Nixie Tube Factory vision. I know you have been studying the 5s system, that is fantastic. You should look into the Kanban system for scaling into your factory. We need more Nixie Tubes, you are a visionary!!! My inspiration!!!
Ah finally!
Now development continues but we have great hope you will solve these problems.
It's amazing to follow your work and how you continously optimize every step to get the best results. For me it's unbelievable that you can use 3d printed parts in a press. Awesome work.
Dont give up. You're pushing your limits and that's great. Thanks!
Hello Dalibor, I'm again amazed how elegantly you solved so much issues since I visited you a month ago. In the video I was nervous like never before in youtube video, when you broke that thin tube to evacuate air. Keep up the good work!
Your prototyping capabilities are absolutely remarkable
Simply awesome work, I cannot begin to imagine how you felt when that glass snapped off at the base but you fixed it and got it working. Keep it up!
i simply love the content
it helps me relax to watch you work
and keeps my love of nixie tubes and their uses alive
keep up the GREAT WORK!!!!
I celebrate your perseverance and success! This is a beautiful thing that deserves to exist. Great job manifesting dream to reality.
The machine shop where I used to work did a lot of rubber pad forming. The press was a custom one which produced over 200 tons force and the tooling was made of aluminium.
Looks good. Great progress! I think a good way to do it is a ring of small jet in a ring or circle with 360 degree coverage or maybe a small “window” to see. Either more jets or bigger. More I think is better to isolate the heat to smaller area on the glass. More jets spreads out heat better for production.
I love folks who follow through on their video series.
That tube is really a piece of art!
Perhaps you could control the glow around the connection wires by adding a better insulator to the back of the anode - a sheet of mica perhaps or some powder-coating on the backside of the anode. As soon as the electrical distance between the anode and the wire gets larger, it should be the cathodes which turn on first and clamp the voltage.
...or after placing the wires where they should go, fixing the electrodes, coat the wires with an additional layer of waterglass, a sodium silicate solution in water. When drying it forms a layer of sodium silicate, essentially glass.
Amazing, glad to see the working prototype! Looking forward to another episodes. Also I like you are holding to a saying:"Golden czech hands" as I see many items in your workshop custom made.
I’m so happy you are keeping the Nixie tubes alive! This is just beautiful work. I’ve got a small nixie clock I built a few years ago and it always makes me happy to see it glowing away. Maybe I’ll buy some from you, but I might need to take a second mortgage out. :)
A little suggestion - you setup the digits on 2 shafts. It look nice but with this size its risky to short circuit by any movement applied to the lamp, probably even vibration of closing the door can cause a lot of sparks and dead electronics. You could try to avoid this by setting up digits on 4 or 6 shafts(cross or hexagon).
I was thinking the same. Digits of this size should have better support. But designing such digits might be issue. Maybe some insulated support wire stretching from side to side?
@@Papinak2wow I didn't think about it first, but you totally right. Digits are not symmetrical and it is impossible to set it on 4 supports. I can imagine few solutions but all of them required really Hight-tech stuff and very hard to made by hands.
This is very exciting! Magnificent work.
Great work on what you have achieved. Your Glass tube work is very interesting to watch and hope you have good luck in your next one. Cheers from Australia
I know its not suppose to but i really like the aesthetic of the flickering tube. Great video cant wait to see this perfected!
Watching this while healing 3 of my poisoned 5660M nixies! One day I'll have a set of your tubes. Keep up the great work!
We’re rooting for you. You’ll get it!
Fascinating, thank you!
Hi Dalibor. I've been following your channel for a couple of months now and I can appreciate how frustrating it can be after putting all that hard work into play and then finally hook-up the power with a vague feeling of disappointment when the numeric elements don't light up. Is it possible that the spot welds on the meshes are shorting because of the spacer material being too close together? Also, as the lathe process spins quite fast, is this putting stress on the spot welds or something? I'm just throwing general ideas and observations at you because I think that the work and investment you've accomplished so far, is fantastic and inspiring. Please don't lose faith in what you are doing because the rewards will be stunning! 😁👍
This work is incredible. When I first saw the Making of a Nixie Tube film is vowed to buy one of these beautiful clocks once I has some spare cash (come on investments... mature!)
Imagine interning at this place, the skills you would learn.
Holy moly huuuge numbers!!!
Wow this is beautiful!
How do you feel, when you see things working for the first time?
I imagine it being a bit magical. But I can't really comprehend the work you put into it. This is a culmination of so many detailed steps and experiments.
Congratulations!
that is a beautiful tube when its all lit up
I got the email yesterday that my clock shipped. Really looking forward to its delivery. Great job.
Great beautiful result!
And i remember such mistakes in my glass blowing experience...
Great milestone video. I think patterning the sheet metal disc would look great aesthetically, especially if it could help strengthen the sheet from bending simultaneously.
A couple thoughts. You could try driving the digits from both sides to reduce overall current in the wires. Maybe increase the number of posts from 2 to 4. With the posts closer together at the top and bottom. You wouldn't have to put 4 attachments on each digit
I think what you are doing is absolutly awsom.. Keep up the good work :)
An alternative to press forming the ridges would be spot welding small stringers (ribs) on the back.
I think I swore more when that pipe broke than you did. 😇😁👍
in case you dont already use a resistor in series, you should add one to limit the starting current and avoid the sparking
I have heard that Uranium glas was used for the glas around the vires as it apparently create a better and more permanent seal around the wired in old vacuum tubes
I wonder if more stand-off mounting wires could be used to position the conductor wires, and perhaps a thin layer of glass melted onto them before inserting the display assembly into the main tube? Not sure if that makes sense, might help with some of the undesired glow or shorting.
Extremely awesome!
This is amazing! Congratulations!
It looks so good
This is so freaking cool, good job and awesome progress dude!
You should put a custom extra digit in, maybe a frown emoji (for error?) or π something else that is not too hard but is unique in Nixie format. Just that one extra bit so that no one could ever doubt where the tube came from.
You sir are a genius ! i cant believe how beautiful those digits are
is there any chance that you start selling clocks with those huge tubes in future?
Very encouraging progress!
I wonder if shielding the digit connections with an intermediate screen with half the anode voltage could be an idea to avoid glowing...
wooooow!!! This is AMAZING, man!!!!
Have you considered making your own insulation for the wires? you could use the same ceramic material you use to separate them, and simply coat those wires in it once they're tig welded in place. Adding that insulator between the connecting plates might also help reduce arcing.
Also, check out the channel "glasslinger". They've done some neat work on nixie tubes and also do a lot of tube replicas.
Maybe you can get some tips from them on how to reduce arcing!
Somebody has seen me! Wow! That's a new one!
@@glasslinger I've been following your channel since before the kitty nixie tube!
Well done
18:47 now you are just flexing :D
the problem with the wire is the thin insulator you get a step in dialectic from wire to vacuum and this creates extremely high fields wich lead to the lighting up of the neon, the only way is a thicker Insulator or one with much lower dialectic constant. maybe you can also optimize your electric flied and stay below the ignition, you have more or less a design not a process problem, looking forward
Described similar idea in czech above. The issue is not the step per se, its the E field gradient inside the insulator not being big enough such that the E field magnitude at its surface is below the strike voltage of the glowing discharge with sufficient margin. And yes, Er of the insulator implies inversely proprotional thickness needed compared to free path in the tube gas. Unfortunately most of the anorganics useable here won't be below Er of ~4, so quite thick in any case. Electrostatic shield at intermediate voltage to keep the local field gradient low enough is a fix. Rearrangement of the mechanical construction is needed in any case.
I am failing so see why the glowing discharge is sustained on the surface of the cerawire given its bulk and surface resistvitity is big enough - it should accumulate the surface charge and hence cancel out the E fied gradient partially increasing the E field drop trough the bulk of insulator. Either there is equilibrium established at some low leakage current but sufficient enough to maintain the glow or surface contamination is present perhaps?
@@Konecny_M yes correct especially oxides have quit high ɛr. contamination is possible the resistances needed are quite high, and also i guess that must have also a porous surface and cracks so no Continuos insulator. The voltages are not that high but you cant get something like tripple junctions, something i have to be careful for high voltage in space for example, also cold Emissions are possible if the surface is rough but i think the voltage is to low, but all depends on field strength. Also in a partial pressure atmosphere as in a Nixie things can be much more tricky. surface contamination is also still a possible problem maybe it gets better over time when most of it will evaporate. but that can be easily testet in a simple test tube where you can also resistivity heat the wires in vacuum.
Thank you for the comment, I will focus on the E distribution and potential gradient in the next video. I am getting more into that right now. Regards!
Awesome! Please tell me you will be making a clock with theses giant tubes!
Can you use the nixie tubes with different gases? Also have you considered a display with enough digits to display epoc time? Might be a good attraction for programmers.
Truly beautiful.
Burn-in will probably make your digit wires glow more than they already do. It's a bit like fixing cathode poisoning. The glowing sections will likely widen and brighten until the whole wire glows like the digit itself.
I don't know how your ceramic-insulated wire behaves. Could bending it cause ceramic to flake off? Also, how would the lacquer on magnet wire behave during the various stages of building a tube?
I'm wondering if you could apply the insulation adhesive with a hypodermic tube to get a more precise joint?
Impressive work. Before too long, you'll probably have people asking you to make or rebuild CRTs. It'd be interesting to see a small round CRT based on your H tube.
Have you thought about making a clock like this, that would be so cool. But im sure you've already made one lol
Dobra praca...a zaujimavy vysledok..
Look at hydroforming. Builds high pressures inexpensively. Also, if you put the weld tabs on the numbers alternating at 160 degrees angle and 200 degrees angle you will have easier access to weld.
Right until you tear the membrane on sharp tooling or blank edge. Rubber pad pressing is good choice here.
True, but proper design of form and tears are no problem. Agree rubber will work here if he gets the right pressure build up.
Is it possible to test the device before sealing it? Like inside of the vakuum chamber?
Is glow a technical problem (like can cause current jumps or something) or aesthetic? If latter maybe tinted glass for the back part of the tube and call it a day?
Looks so amazing.
Would you say the greatest impact to production during COVI-10 has ben getting nitrile gloves for work?
Does it harm the glass that the flames are removing sodium from it?
Im not 100% on the physics of the glow-discharge that nixie tubes use, but if field gradient comes into play (change in voltage over change in distance in the insulator, both the ceramic and the gas) perhaps a larger diameter wire would reduce the voltage gradient around the wire to raise its striking voltage so hopefully the digit could light up first? An A-B comparison between two different diameters of 'normal' wire for you in a test tube to see how the striking/ignition voltage differs may see if its worth perusing further. I.e. if its an academic difference and you'd need to use 5mm wire to have any real effect for what you want to do, or if going up up to 1mm wire and insulating the spot-welds with sharp points may be enough.
I don't know for sure but I suspect that the digits would need support on the 3 and 6 a clock sides (it the supports that are there now are in 12 and 6 a clock)
They look like they might flex and posible touch each other othervice
Amazing
This tube will be *glowrious*
I'm not sure if someone else suggested this, or if you have discovered on your own, but why not use a small piece that is L shaped and spot weld this to your anode in order to stiffen it?
very very big brother ,, wow
Wonderfull idea. You could produce amplfier triodes also?
StuffMadeHere has some phenomenal content on sheetmetal pressing using 3d printed and improvised hardware, look up his videos!
"Looks like it's from a professional factory" as if it isn't. :v
ikr :D
Hes really modest in his self assesment
Gud going.. buck up man..gud job
If you could make the white pins and standoffs black somehow that would be awesome
For your back plate does it make sense to use a 3D printed honeycomb frame and then a fix the plate to it to gain the rigidness (similar to how a large telescope is setup). Instead of insulated wire how about using porcelain tubing to get rid of the glow.
I have never seen so much work put into a project. If a person had to do it in their spare time, it would take six lifetimes. Amazing work though.
On the press with the rubber. Isn't the rubber usually confined so it cannot spread out? I think that's how I've seen it done, aircraft industry.
Gratulujem k prvým "viditeľným" úspechom tohoto funkčného prototypu a prajem skoré vyriešenie všetkých problémov pri ich výrobe. A iba pre zaujímavosť, aký je približný odoberaný prúd pri takto veľkých čísliciach?
Dekuji, kolem 30mA
Admire your persistence
What is the name of the website that you were checking rubber pad thingy! Openlearn website but could you provide the full web address link, please? Also, I wish you the best of luck keep up with the good work
Since the Nixie tube will only be viewed from the front, what about a mechanical screen to hide the glowing wires? Some sort of thermally stable dielectric material could work, and if the rest of the display board is dark, it should remain invisible if it is aligned with the plane of the surrounding background.
oh man, next thing i will not buy an electric car damit, these tubes are much more fun! a clock with four tubes like this one
15:45 u welcome guys
Tvarem mi to dost připomíná CRT obrazovku 🙂