I think these were by the Atomic Energy Commission for nuclear weapons testing in the Nevada Desert during the cold war. The refresh rate of the screen display was fast enough measure time coding information perfectly, they would be referenced on film recordings of bomb tests. I cant remember if it was used for timing of the explosions or if it was just for time tracking of the film.
Or reverse engineering from "other crafts" or systems that had high voltage power subsystems to augment the "other super high voltage electro systems" used for primary propulsion. Maybe? Also they could withstand a helluva EMP. ?
@@mycosys That was my first impression, this was specialized equipment that was made for a specific purpose. I would say military application would be the most common sense application. I would also consider the Space Program or rocket research.
@@wHiTeHaT44 She programmed the counter to count up; you can program the tube to count down as well. And some people have proposed this might have been used for timelapse or a time counter for video.
@1968garfield remember that commercial solar panels were also hot new tec around the same time as nimo so they were thinking business would pay a one time premium fee then have free electricity and batteries were not an issue because the tubes only needed to work 9 to 5.
If you listen the entire video, she explains that they were not available until after NIXIE tubes were already becoming obsolete. Along with other factors, like requiring a more complicated power supply.
@@niabiii we as a nation of consumers drove this process. In many cases we don't let a product die before we replace it with the latest and greatest version of said thing. Why would a company produce a car that lasts 50+ years when many get a new vehicle every 10 years. They just give the people what they ask for.
@@NavyVet4955 you have it completely backwards, no one wants to replace their 20k $$$ car with a new one ona whim, do you understand how much money this is for people?
@@johhnyknoxville3948 clearly until the recent economic crash people were often replacing their cars, you simply need to use those fingers and that device in your hand to find the info.
@@johhnyknoxville3948 ...My experience with people says otherwise, the amount of people that yearly replaces their smartphone or replace their cars every 5-10 years even when it's all in perfect working order is insane.
It's really cool watching you mess with things from my Dad's era onward, so I'm really glad I found this channel! He was an engineer from back when you didn't need an expensive degree, and worked with airport radar equipment back in the beginning of that technology. He always said if he did have that degree on his wall, he would be in the history books on radar technology - for airports, at least. Later, after some issues in his life, he moved to the less stressful radio and TV repair business. From 2-way radio to home entertainment radios, and about anything with a tube or 50 inside it, he could fix it. Anyway, your channel brings back memories of me helping him solder stuff on his workbench in his spare time. ❤️ I really appreciate it! ❤️❤️
I graduated from high school in 1969. Your video brought back memories of the various electronic projects that I was working on then. I used electronics in my three-year-long research project that I completed during high school that won a prize at the 1969 International Science Fair in Fort Worth, Texas. (I studied the influence of electricity on the growth of the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica.) That science project was one of the factors that worked in my favor in being admitted to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. I continued with various electronic projects during my undergraduate and graduate school years. Now, I'm a general class amateur radio operator, KE5HXX.
I spent 7 years in the NAVY on submarines SSBN 619 and ssbn 634 all built in the late 60s we had those tubes in our MK 19 GYRO and our 400 hz transfer system. The MK 19 gyro had over 200 tubes . I was trained in all tube electronics still have the books When a MK 19 gyro goes down and you think it has a tube you have to replace all of them with a tube pack that was tested 5 times before sending them out The tube we think has to be tested with a tube tester as we have to test all of them we write down any failures and the submarine carries 2 sets . My subs went out 70 days or more . Oh if you have a failure again you hope the 2 tubes that was bad and now no spare it sucked I still have a few laying around . 1 of the subs went into drydock for upgrades and they were throwing them away I have all the schematics for them. I would have stayed in for 30 but I got hurt bad that made me lose control of my legs
@ ncrdisabled Submarine vet I maintained the MK 19 gyro for years. I call bullshit. 1: It did not have over 200 tubes. 2: Once you have tested a tube, why on earth would you subject it to 4 more tests? 3: The gyro comes with a very comprehensive manual, which generally allows you to isolate faults quickly. 4:The servo amplifiers were designed with double triodes, each of which was capable of maintaining the performance of the amplifier; if one failed, you changed it, without requiring that the entire system be shut down. 5: Submarines are not noted for their space; You do not have the capacity to carry an abundance of spares. Relying on the skill of your technical people is a far better policy. 6: I was on a 18 month deployment, and I had maybe 5 'maintainers alarms', and I think 2 'gyro alarms', neither needing the system to be shut down - in fact, the most serious snag I had was a failure of the cooling fan in the control cabinet. 7: This device ( NIMO tube) was not a part of the control system, and I cannot imagine what purpose it would serve. 8: I don't believe you have any technical knowledge of the Mk 19. You were just a toolbox carrier.
Inner parts for vacuum tubes are easy. Anyone with even minimal metalworking experience and equipment could knock out the inner components of one of these.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro - It's not a big mystery. Listening in on very weak radio signals is a bread-and-butter intelligence operation. You would want the equipment you used for that purpose to generate very little self-interference.
old vid, but I just thought why the anode is on that button. It's probably for future plans on making these things entirely socketed, so you can just plug them in and out.
What an interesting piece of technology. I've been interested in Nixie tubes for a while, but this is a whole new level! Also, I'm happy that Fran is not a spastic youtube presenter with jump cuts like most of youtube presenters. Thanks for making this video!
Thank You, Gustavo & Kevin! FWIW: I have always been one of those "never forgets a face" types. In the last decade or two, I began to realize my memory works by 'association'. And it was NOT just faces, but *anything* I see or read - and to a lesser extent hear, smell, or taste - can sometimes brings up an IMMEDIATE memory of some kind. Reading "NIMO" *immediately* reminded me of the title of the movie "FINDING NEMO". NOW, if I could just *recall everything else* in my memory *when I needed it* ...《grin》
4:00 probably used in the military then. if something is produced and cant find any civilian application whether industrial or not, you can bet its military.
The best feeling an inventor/innovator can have is the “it works...” feeling. And let me tell you, no matter how small the object or machinery that feeling is the most satisfying thing when it comes to making something new.
One of the best obscure electronics videos I've seen to date! Thanks for showing me something that I never knew existed. I'm going to set aside some time to binge watch the whole series.
I just love the occasional EEVBlog multimeter in your videos, it's like a little treasure hunt to find it in the different shots to me :D Also, great video als always! Gotta thank the patreons myself for making this possible, otherwise I would miss your videos a lot!
Yes, the Nimo--sort of a scaled-down numeric-only "baby brother" of the Charactron. The Charactron (developed by Convair in 1954, IIRC) was another similar, but much more advanced CRT tube which also sports an electron bean stencil plate to shape the electron beam to form the numbers displayed much like a Nimo. Although the Charactron could also do letters and symbols, and have the character positioned anywhere on the screen via a set of secondary deflection coils. The Charactron could do vector-traced graphics as well using said secondary deflection, and a special "center dot" character in the stencil, where the resulting formed narrow beam could be deflected and steered to write vector graphics to the Charactron's raster, like a traditional vector scanned CRT. The Stromberg-Carlson SC4020 computer film recorder/plotter from the 1960s used a smaller 5" Charactron as the heart of it's workings, and the SAGE radar terminals used by the US Air Force also employed a larger-sized 19" Charactron for their displays. Bell Labs used a 4020 to create some of the very first computer animation to film in the mid-60s using their Fortran-derived "BEFLIX" graphics language. And IINM, NASA also used a 4020 to print out the first digital images of Mars from the Mariner 4 probe in 1965. Wikipedia even has an article about the Charactron: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charactron Fran, if you could find an old Charactron to demonstrate in one of your videos, I'd be delighted!!!!
Ryan Schweitzer. Yes, I heard or read this years ago. Some say it was used to play zee first video game of Space War. Bell Labs used vector graphics in 1963 to create a animated short film to portray the orbiting of a satellite around zee Earth
I used to work for IEE in Van Nuys about 15 years ago, they were going into commercial point of sale displays but their history was ALL military displays. I do remember seeing one of these on the desk of an engineer who had been there for 37 years. He explained it as a CRT nixie tube (for simplification) while telling me of the military uses it had performed. They also refurbished the displays back in the day.
I downloaded the archived data sheet that Fran referencesd I'm amazed that this firm is still at the address shown on their 1969 data sheet. Their website shows that they continue to innovate in display design.
@@erickschumacher1294 I took the office of an older guy who had as a screen saver "who is john galt" and then next office over was a guy named Mike who invented CCFL . .my supervisor was a tall redheaded woman.
@@erickschumacher1294 were you there when they decided to "ruggedize" the 42" plasma screens, that was 1997. I was hired during a period that felt like the company was conflicted between the status quo and adopting new ideas. Status quo actually adopted new ideas but then didn't recognize itself. Confusing idea, yes it was. it was like a sinking boat tried to put the sky below it to stay atop the water.
... and your bench is nicely organized like mine: last used materials and tools are used to push previously used tools and materials away from the central work area lolol
Julia Marshall I loved those. My father had an old Webcor reel to reel tape recorder that had one to set the recording level. I remember talking in to the microphone and watching the little phosphor eye "talking" with me. Very cool to me back in the day! I'd love to make a project with one to relive those times.
At the time, I recall being told that transistors were a passing fad. Never make any power, too noisy, fragile, low frequency only ... which was kind of true for a CK722 . 1700 volts wasn't all that much considering 450 volts was a fairly common plate voltage and I lost count of how many times I took 14 Kv shocks when I was converting a TV to a scope ( ok I was 12 and a the anode connection was behind the chassis ) but I can see the established tube engineers thinking this was the way to go.
..I remember when you could (as a hobbyist) only get 2 types of transistors...CK722 and 2N107......and high-voltage rectifier tubes were being replace by Silicon Rectifiers..! I built a radio in 1958 that used a silicon rectifier...fit right into a fuse socket...plans from Popular Electronics....the radio still used a couple tubes for everything else...no transistors....
On this side of the Pond, Mullard ruled, and we had the OC71, with a cutoff frequency of 350kHz, and a noise figure which was unbelievable. Scrape the paint off and you had a photosensitive device which was quite useful. The OC72 was its 'power output stage' counterpart, usually used in push-pull, giving around 200mW of audio, if you used heatsinks. Mullard later developed RF transistors with internal screens, so four leads out of the bottom of the aluminium can. Top it off with the OA81 diode as a detector, and you could build a radio receiver which could run quite happily on a single dry cell at 1.5 Volts. Later on, we had the OC200 and OC201 transistors which were symmetrical, in that you could even connect them the wrong way around (Collector to positive instead of to negative) and they would still work. All devices were Germanium, and mostly point contact, not Silicon wafer, so everything had to be properly biased, in an attempt to reduce thermal drift, which plagued Germanium semiconductors. You could destroy them with soldering iron heat in around ten seconds, too. The ubiquity of PNP transistors meant that ground was almost always positive. Happy days.
Did the photo transistor trick too, and later pried the metal off a ceramic case 4164 to make a crude imaging element. Worked but they had a curved epoxy layer over the silicon so a bit distorted and really was 2 32K bit elements with a bar between. Tube days, a 12 year old armed with the warning not to push a rectifier over 25 Kv is of course going to play with X rays too :P . I think I recall seeing Nimo tubes on a Dr Who episode, wonder if it was the one filmed at a working nuclear power plant.
Fran, not sure if you have seen the channel by " Photoinduction " ? He has shown some incredibly rare & large mercury diodes & a very rare "Nernst" lamp along with lots of chaotic crazyness, you may find some of it very interesting.
I believe general electric was developing a miniature version of this. My grandfather Herold walker was an engineer for them for 40 years. He had patents that were property of ge for things such as a machine he invented to test light bulbs for correct gasses content with polarized light to spot defective ones quickly. Absolutely wonderful video!
This might be a bad memory, but back in the 80's my dad was a tchnisian in an oil refinery. P{art of his job was running the control room. I remember nimo tubes (I didn't know what they were called then) and I thought they were pretty cool compared to the nixi tubes I'd seen in other places.
I found this channel seeing some vintage music equipment videos, which were great, and now I'm finding out Fran has videos on all sorts of super interesting subjects. Great stuff!
I really liked this video. I really liked the display and how you've kept a tiny bit of elecro-tech history for us, and I like your engineering a LOT. Bravo
Thank you for showing the operation of the rarest display on Earth! From a technology course I took more than 40 years ago, I believe those Nimo tubes were used on some continous-tuning HF-VHF-UHF radio receiver, which required a frequency display that generated no internal interferences. The Nimo requires the same complex bias of an oscilloscope tube, but that is dwarfed by the complexity and cost of such all-frequencies tube radios for special customers. I want to emphasise that I heard in a teaching course about the tube, but I have never seen it. My hands-on experience is limited to devices like the EM80. Thanks for the video - and for the incredible patience needed to put together all the power supplies, the bias circuitry and the drive logic...
Just found your channel surfing around learning about electronics. Your videos are excellent. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and passion. Awesome. This is what TH-cam and social media should be like. Shared knowledge and experience. Good stuff!
A nice piece of history this. I remember admiring an old rackmounted geiger counter where my dad worked (in the 1960's) with these instead of Nixie or Dekatron tubes, and thinking that it looked the bees knees. And yes, the zero was burned in on all of the tubes - visible even through the pale grey contrast filter. These days, I have a hankering for Dekatron counters - just because they were always nice and warm in the lab.
Thanks for a great video Fran! I started working for Hewlett-Packard on January 26th of 1973 at the tender age of 19 as a trainee tech repairing the HP35 calculators and saw a lot of technology there over the 22 years that I worked for them and I had never seen or even heard of the NIMO tube until I saw your video today, so thanks for helping to enlighten an old technician and remind me that I don't know everything (which actually isn't to hard ;D). When you showed the One Plane display towards the end of the video (which I had seen and even played with at a friend's home years ago) I noticed that IEE was based in North Hollywood which is where we live and now I'm intrigued to see if I can find there old facility. Thanks again for all the great tech info.
Easiest way in is from Kester & Saticoy go north on Kester and follow it through the hood ahead. @ Keswick you should be able to seee their shipping bldg to the left. Take Keswick 1 block west to Lemona and you have found what remains of IEE. All the brick buildings you see on your tour used to be IEE or related. About half of their buildings are still theirs. My office was in a building that had been there from the beginning. Now it is a marble/granite showroom. AARRRRGH!! what a waste BTW, technically it is located in Van Nuys
Thank you for this, Fran. Very interesting. I feel as though I've seen these in older sci-fi or nuclear war type movies. Almost always a countdown display.
I’m in Conshohocken right now. Only been here for a year, moved here for an engineering job. Im mad I just found your channel. You are amazing Fran. Wish I was in the area longer just so I could say I was by Fran Blanche! Thanks for the cool video.
Fran, I have some of these tubes (somewhere!) - no they are NOT NIXIE tubes! Mine have a hash and some other non numeric characters and came from demonstration display that was used at the Mullard expo in London (it wasn't only Mullard equipment but an expo of new inventions). Prince Philip attended and I met him at the time. I too obtained them to play with but unlike you never managed to do the job properly so they are in the attic, or the shed, or the outhouse, or..... Do you want one or have you exhausted your interest? I am in England so they'd have to travel well. Rob.
And 40 years later, a company called Vu1 got the equally wacky idea to use a miniature CRT as a light bulb -- the ESL (Electron Stimulated Luminescence) light bulb. Needless to say it was an idea that didn't catch on.
Whoa, cool! Can you tell me anything more about it? Was it powered directly from the AC socket, or did it need its own solid state power supply - - or a combo of both? I mean what kind of ac/dc adaptor goes with it, or inside it(its base)?
Someone broke one of these to expose the matrice, it's pretty interesting as it has the numbers laid on it. I wonder if the round version (as the broken one is rectangle) is displayed in a carousel style or different. I think that with the technology we have today in tubes (the slight, but considerable advances in power consumption) we could make more of these. Even as a DIY level, i can see this happening. OF COURSE, the price would be high, but hey, we're making Nixie tubes, again, after so long. One of these, isn't much more complicated.
Well, it's basically a a slightly more complex variant of a CRT display. (relatively speaking - I imagine the kind of colour SVGA tubes used in the late 90's might be a touch more difficult. Or not. Who knows?) It's an interesting thought that you could make such things as a hobby. Though CRT's were pretty dangerous to develop. (apparently a lot of the earliest designs produced large amounts of radiation. I forget what type. X-rays I believe. - not the healthiest thing to be exposed to.) Still, can't be as bad as semiconductor manufacturing. And I know for a fact someone did that at hobby scale - quite an ordeal just to make your own transistors... (The problem with semiconductors is that commercial manufacturing quickly moved towards using chemicals that are amongst the most deadly you could think of - odourless gases that can kill you if you inhale them. Fun.) Some of these things are definitely doable, but at a hobby scale it carries a lot of potential hidden risks for the unwary... I'd love to see someone do it though. XD
LEDs and a light mask are an interesting idea. Ultraviolet LEDs could make the phosphor coating glow in the same way the electron gun did. You'd need lenses to focus the UV LEDs, though; that would add a bit of complexity.
Well now at least, someone in China will be tooling up to flood the market with these.. they are just too cool not to be wanted by every tech head on the planet.
It was already done, the tech behind it is known, you could even get a broken one for reverse engineering if a teenager can make a breeder reactor in his garage I can't see why an electric engineer wouldn't be able to make one of these. I think that the issue might be with people not wanting it. Why waste time bringing some old crap back if few people will buy it. Making a microprocessor is magic though.
Sagans Run Don’t envy, go and learn new things on-line! My Mom learned to drive at age 60. 24 years later, she is itching to get back in her car again but the lockdown means that she has to stay home and I get her groceries from the store. She used a Windows PC at work but in January 2018, she got an iMac, an iPad and she has an iPhone and handles them like a boss to make crafts and cards for a local thrift store. When I worked in a school, pupils would always say things were “impossible”. So we moved around some of the letters to read “I’m possible” - so something small and move on to more complicated things later. Good luck!
Ashley Booth Build one! I did last year just for kicks. I made a plexiglass enclosure for it so that stray fingers don't get zapped! I love the glow it produces at night in my living room. There are lots of kits online if you don't want to cobble up your own parts and design a board.
Fran: Very nice treatise on this very rare tube. In 1971 we had the very early LED readouts like the Monsanto MAN1 and MAN4 7-segment displays. We knew it was the end of the line for tubes like poor old Nimo and Nixie. -- Bill
You are amazing! Thanks so much for this in-depth view! I didn't understand all (most) of it, but it makes me excited to learn new things. Well done! :-)
Congratulations! Think how many people are missing this because they don't know how cool you are! LOL Your "do it yourself mounting" for the NIMO is not only ingenious, but highly functional! Better let them in what a "compactron" is.
How have I not found your channel before?!? Love the controlled chaos of your lab. I knew about nimo tubes,but had never seen one,let alone one working. Thanks! Entertaining and informative. Liked and subbed.
i thought for sure i have seen them in the old Moonbase 3 series or more likely the great UFO tv show, seems to me Shado HG was full of great electronic gizmos,!
Dangerous is an exaggeration, the high voltage generator would be current limited so that even if you touched it, the voltage would drop away dramatically. The Focus supply on a colour CRT was approx 6KV and you could easily draw an arc from your finger and sometimes you only noticed it was happening due to the ozone smell.
I don't know why I love this so much but it's cool as hell. I do love gadgets so I guess that's why I love this so much but I have to say well done Fran I really enjoyed watching this.
Lol Fran don't be disappointed. It's very cool. I love it and glad I got to see it in action. Kind of seems like something you would have in an elevator.
It pleases me the retro look that the Nimo has. It should be funny as well to perform experiments with other kind of display tubes of 1950/60s like typotron or the charactron , even rarer than Nimo.
Back in the 70s I started my career in Television repairs. Black and white TVs used 10,000 volts and Color used 25,000 volts. Was this voltage at the time particularly dangerous? Well one employer I was working for would turn on the main board without the CRT connected and Ould hold the high voltage cap in his hand and allowed the high voltage arcs to go through his hand. I don't recommend any one else trying it but the power transformers also known s flyback trnsformers used extremely low amounts of current, By contrast a microwave oven magnetron tube is 5.000 volts but high current and will definitely cause enough current to kill some one. What kind of current does your high voltage circuit supply?
@@MrHBSoftware X rays are always produced more or less when bending accelerated particle beams like in a CRT TV or oscilloscope. However there is a lot of lead added to the glass used for CRT tubes so the radiation can't get out and harm you.
@@johnpekkala6941 thanks for the answer, i am familiar with crt tvs (50´s and 60's sets) as you can see from my channel's videos but i was unaware of such high voltages present at the crt anode, i thought that from 20kv upwards there would be the risk of too much x-rays escaping from the glass (i explained myself wrong)..thats the reason the more modern crts have x-ray protection where if the high voltage goes up it shuts down the horizontal circuit to avoid x-radiation going to the user. i always thought the safe limit was 20kv
my dad tried to tune an old 60s/70s color TV with a screw driver.... crossed two contacts..... and ended up getting blown across the room didnt hurt him...... just woke him RIGHT up
@@MrHBSoftware : 25 Kv was common on color tvs. Then came the brightness race, where 27" or larger tubes would run at 27 Kv, or I seem to remember up to 30 Kv. I have a tube projector in my basement, where the 5" (5.5"?) tubes run 33 Kv. The front of those tubes are liquid cooled. A teacher told me that the large power tubes had the glass darken due to X rays attacking the lead in the glass. (6BK4, 6LQ6, 3A3). You weren't supposed to run the set with the shields off This is bringing back memories... Anybody remember the ion trap on B&W tvs?
Back in the early 70s at my first job with a TV station I was servicing some broadcast equipment that was using Nimo tubes in the digital display. There were very few devices using Nimo tubes. Then they switched over to Nixi tubes. I remember there were modifications to Nixi tubes.
Indeed! The telescope was commissioned in 1974 and much of the compute was built around 1972, so the timelines make sense. The back of the cabinet looked like this: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/1229018916/in/album-72157600378447133/ When we were decommissioning the old computer, we had to keep the control panel operational, and we had visiting astronomers who were nosy. So I put this sign up when someone slightly electrocuted themselves on the 1750volts: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/3469662937/in/album-72157600378447133/ You mention the wide viewing angle: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/1101900648/in/album-72157600378447133/ The labels on this photo tell roughly what each part of the control console did: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/3263021413/in/album-72157600378447133/
No idea - but our management weren't exactly famous for getting value from their surplus equipment, so my guess is that they've been hoarded in the old-timer's shipping container.
very much of topic .. but every time I view your videos .. I fall just a little more in love with you ... I guess you have heard that few times lol .. love your work and the amount of time and effort you put into every video you produce .. keep up the great work
Visually reminds me of the Magic Eye tubes from the radios from the 30s and 40s. But definitely a strange build. Seems like the neon digital tubes would have been the easiest way to go in those days
Is it possible the shadowing is not reflectance/refractivity from the illuminated glass, but electrons bouncing off the screen and being reaccellerated into the screen by the field? Doesn't look quite right for optical to me.
fran....those were used in "certain" types of research equipment(where they were seen last and in actual use by yours truly). past that it never caught on. this due mostly due to the high voltages it requires that you mentioned. there were indeed multi digit units produced and in use. the edit: crissakes.....this reminded me of how old i am getting chronologically. :->
yeah......our uncle has a lot of the best toys to fettle ;-). past that i cannot give more info.however, there is a surplus outlet in the midwest that has enough period equipment there that the odds of running across one of these tubes would be fairly good.
Fran, after stumbling on this video and watching most of it- I am quite impressed. I have determined 2 things though 1) you are really super intelligent (not that you need me to tell you that 2) you have way too much time on your hands ;) I'm subscribing
OMG! You talk like a fella. I can't believe you're so electro-machanically clever. You're a woman of my heart. I can't wait to see more of your videos. I am REALLY impressed. Thank you so much for being who you are and doing what you do.
I think these were by the Atomic Energy Commission for nuclear weapons testing in the Nevada Desert during the cold war. The refresh rate of the screen display was fast enough measure time coding information perfectly, they would be referenced on film recordings of bomb tests. I cant remember if it was used for timing of the explosions or if it was just for time tracking of the film.
You may be the answer to the video, but your comment is buried in a pile of other comments. Fran may never see this.
Or reverse engineering from "other crafts" or systems that had high voltage power subsystems to augment the "other super high voltage electro systems" used for primary propulsion. Maybe?
Also they could withstand a helluva EMP. ?
Clark Magnuson not to worry, the power of TH-cam prevails and it's now a top comment!
@@mycosys That was my first impression, this was specialized equipment that was made for a specific purpose. I would say military application would be the most common sense application. I would also consider the Space Program or rocket research.
@@wHiTeHaT44 She programmed the counter to count up; you can program the tube to count down as well. And some people have proposed this might have been used for timelapse or a time counter for video.
If it's rare and you're looking for one, is it called Finding Nimo?
OMG ^^
Groan! :-D
You are killing me! 😂
Smart ass! 😏🤣
Put that as the video title with some Nemo / nimo clickbait thumbnail and you got yourself 4-10x views
Well, who else ended up here from Technology Connections link?
Me
was already subscribed but I'm back now from there
Also me
Me
Me
9 out of 10 early 70's super-villains prefer NIMO tubes for their doomsday machine countdown-o-graphs
readmedottext or nixie tubes
the other 1 out of 10 use nixies
When I first see it in action: "That looks way better than a NIXIE. I wonder why they never caught on?"
Then I hear "1750 VDC" "Oh...thats why."
@1968garfield remember that commercial solar panels were also hot new tec around the same time as nimo so they were thinking business would pay a one time premium fee then have free electricity and batteries were not an issue because the tubes only needed to work 9 to 5.
If you listen the entire video, she explains that they were not available until after NIXIE tubes were already becoming obsolete. Along with other factors, like requiring a more complicated power supply.
same here....... 1750V AC..... ok sure
but DC...holy FUCK!
@@mycosys sure it may be microwatts (which means LOW amps)..... but its still 1750 D.C!
stress on the DC part!
@@kainhall dont really get whats so magical about dc to you
The intelligence of people like Fran who can not only understand but build things like this blows my mind.
Really? Its not rocket surgery...
It is very cool though, so Yay Fran.
Google Heath Company
this has nothing to do with intelligence...passion is all you need (and a nimo-tube of course)
Tom Treacy Rocket surgery?
@@U.S.A.1791 it's something smart people say
1970 - Let's see how long we can make it last.
2000 - Let's see how quickly we can make it deteriorate.
capitalism at it's finest
@@niabiii we as a nation of consumers drove this process. In many cases we don't let a product die before we replace it with the latest and greatest version of said thing. Why would a company produce a car that lasts 50+ years when many get a new vehicle every 10 years. They just give the people what they ask for.
@@NavyVet4955 you have it completely backwards, no one wants to replace their 20k $$$ car with a new one ona whim, do you understand how much money this is for people?
@@johhnyknoxville3948 clearly until the recent economic crash people were often replacing their cars, you simply need to use those fingers and that device in your hand to find the info.
@@johhnyknoxville3948 ...My experience with people says otherwise, the amount of people that yearly replaces their smartphone or replace their cars every 5-10 years even when it's all in perfect working order is insane.
It's really cool watching you mess with things from my Dad's era onward, so I'm really glad I found this channel! He was an engineer from back when you didn't need an expensive degree, and worked with airport radar equipment back in the beginning of that technology. He always said if he did have that degree on his wall, he would be in the history books on radar technology - for airports, at least.
Later, after some issues in his life, he moved to the less stressful radio and TV repair business. From 2-way radio to home entertainment radios, and about anything with a tube or 50 inside it, he could fix it. Anyway, your channel brings back memories of me helping him solder stuff on his workbench in his spare time. ❤️ I really appreciate it!
❤️❤️
Trippy! You're an absolute fountain of knowledge on this quirky, rare tube that just barely existed. Thanks for this sweet venture into our 1960's! :)
I graduated from high school in 1969. Your video brought back memories of the various electronic projects that I was working on then. I used electronics in my three-year-long research project that I completed during high school that won a prize at the 1969 International Science Fair in Fort Worth, Texas. (I studied the influence of electricity on the growth of the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica.) That science project was one of the factors that worked in my favor in being admitted to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. I continued with various electronic projects during my undergraduate and graduate school years. Now, I'm a general class amateur radio operator, KE5HXX.
I spent 7 years in the NAVY on submarines SSBN 619 and ssbn 634 all built in the late 60s we had those tubes in our MK 19 GYRO and our 400 hz transfer system. The MK 19 gyro had over 200 tubes . I was trained in all tube electronics still have the books When a MK 19 gyro goes down and you think it has a tube you have to replace all of them with a tube pack that was tested 5 times before sending them out The tube we think has to be tested with a tube tester as we have to test all of them we write down any failures and the submarine carries 2 sets . My subs went out 70 days or more . Oh if you have a failure again you hope the 2 tubes that was bad and now no spare it sucked I still have a few laying around . 1 of the subs went into drydock for upgrades and they were throwing them away I have all the schematics for them. I would have stayed in for 30 but I got hurt bad that made me lose control of my legs
Thank you for sharing..
@ ncrdisabled Submarine vet
I maintained the MK 19 gyro for years. I call bullshit.
1: It did not have over 200 tubes.
2: Once you have tested a tube, why on earth would you subject it to 4 more tests?
3: The gyro comes with a very comprehensive manual, which generally allows you to isolate faults quickly.
4:The servo amplifiers were designed with double triodes, each of which was capable of maintaining the performance of the amplifier; if one failed, you changed it, without requiring that the entire system be shut down.
5: Submarines are not noted for their space; You do not have the capacity to carry an abundance of spares. Relying on the skill of your technical people is a far better policy.
6: I was on a 18 month deployment, and I had maybe 5 'maintainers alarms', and I think 2 'gyro alarms', neither needing the system to be shut down - in fact, the most serious snag I had was a failure of the cooling fan in the control cabinet.
7: This device ( NIMO tube) was not a part of the control system, and I cannot imagine what purpose it would serve.
8: I don't believe you have any technical knowledge of the Mk 19. You were just a toolbox carrier.
Probably used a TV-7A/U tube tester.
Do you still have the tubes? I might be interested in purchasing if available.
By 79 (SSN 684) we had re-programmable buttons (called PROs) on the BQQ-5 suite. Push the button and the text on it changed. Way cool.
I spent a fair few hours glancing at these when I was in the military. They were a part of a telemetry display used in missile testing.
A bunch of tech-heads are now furiously scouring the internet for one of these.
I'm about to make a mint!
While all you peasants are furiously bidding on eBay auctions, *I'm* learning glassblowing, to make one of these bastards.
Anneliese o'callaghan I'm going to build a car, I just need to make the shell right ? Lol.
Inner parts for vacuum tubes are easy. Anyone with even minimal metalworking experience and equipment could knock out the inner components of one of these.
A true Dutch master :)
5:28 The “near zero RFI generation” caught my eye. What if there was some specialized, classified military application where these were ideal?
Lawrence D’Oliveiro - It's not a big mystery. Listening in on very weak radio signals is a bread-and-butter intelligence operation. You would want the equipment you used for that purpose to generate very little self-interference.
I'm sure these saw more military use than people would think.
"almost unhaveable" is a great way of putting it!
That is FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ............you rock Fran!!!
This tube looks like it came straight out of Fallout 4. Also I just learned you are Frantone ! That's cool
the power armor internal displays use nixie tubes
looks like the number 2 on the fallout 2 cover
Cooler than cool bananas!
EEVblog hey. It’s Dave!
Dave must be top comment! Help Dave on top!
cooler than Cool Whip™
Look at Dave, in like Flynn. I bet he'd love to give this more than a sniff test.
Dave's clearly a bottom.
old vid, but I just thought why the anode is on that button. It's probably for future plans on making these things entirely socketed, so you can just plug them in and out.
they are fucking rare! she has one, in numbers 1, of them, because she was fortunate! did you even listen to her?
@@hansmuller4338 did you even read his comment? lmao
What an interesting piece of technology. I've been interested in Nixie tubes for a while, but this is a whole new level! Also, I'm happy that Fran is not a spastic youtube presenter with jump cuts like most of youtube presenters. Thanks for making this video!
You are awesome for bringing this thing back to life and sharing it with all of us! This is the first video of yours that I've seen btw. Thanks!
after 2 years am also watching her for 1st time
FRAN! YOU SHOULD HAVE NAMED THIS VIDEO:
*FINDING NIMO*
;~)°
K. K. K. K. Good joke
I see what you did there 😂
AccAccAccAccAcc
Thank You, Gustavo & Kevin!
FWIW: I have always been one of those "never forgets a face" types.
In the last decade or two, I began to realize my memory works by 'association'. And it was NOT just faces, but *anything* I see or read - and to a lesser extent hear, smell, or taste - can sometimes brings up an IMMEDIATE memory of some kind. Reading "NIMO" *immediately* reminded me of the title of the movie "FINDING NEMO".
NOW, if I could just *recall everything else* in my memory *when I needed it* ...《grin》
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!! ...Good one.
4:00 probably used in the military then. if something is produced and cant find any civilian application whether industrial or not, you can bet its military.
The best feeling an inventor/innovator can have is the “it works...” feeling. And let me tell you, no matter how small the object or machinery that feeling is the most satisfying thing when it comes to making something new.
One of the best obscure electronics videos I've seen to date! Thanks for showing me something that I never knew existed. I'm going to set aside some time to binge watch the whole series.
I just love the occasional EEVBlog multimeter in your videos, it's like a little treasure hunt to find it in the different shots to me :D Also, great video als always! Gotta thank the patreons myself for making this possible, otherwise I would miss your videos a lot!
Yes, the Nimo--sort of a scaled-down numeric-only "baby brother" of the Charactron. The Charactron (developed by Convair in 1954, IIRC) was another similar, but much more advanced CRT tube which also sports an electron bean stencil plate to shape the electron beam to form the numbers displayed much like a Nimo. Although the Charactron could also do letters and symbols, and have the character positioned anywhere on the screen via a set of secondary deflection coils. The Charactron could do vector-traced graphics as well using said secondary deflection, and a special "center dot" character in the stencil, where the resulting formed narrow beam could be deflected and steered to write vector graphics to the Charactron's raster, like a traditional vector scanned CRT.
The Stromberg-Carlson SC4020 computer film recorder/plotter from the 1960s used a smaller 5" Charactron as the heart of it's workings, and the SAGE radar terminals used by the US Air Force also employed a larger-sized 19" Charactron for their displays. Bell Labs used a 4020 to create some of the very first computer animation to film in the mid-60s using their Fortran-derived "BEFLIX" graphics language. And IINM, NASA also used a 4020 to print out the first digital images of Mars from the Mariner 4 probe in 1965. Wikipedia even has an article about the Charactron: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charactron
Fran, if you could find an old Charactron to demonstrate in one of your videos, I'd be delighted!!!!
Ryan Schweitzer. Yes, I heard or read this years ago. Some say it was used to play zee first video game of Space War.
Bell Labs used vector graphics in 1963 to create a animated short film to portray the orbiting of a satellite around zee Earth
I used to work for IEE in Van Nuys about 15 years ago, they were going into commercial point of sale displays but their history was ALL military displays. I do remember seeing one of these on the desk of an engineer who had been there for 37 years. He explained it as a CRT nixie tube (for simplification) while telling me of the military uses it had performed. They also refurbished the displays back in the day.
They are still around. ieeinc.com/
If I worked there I would tell everyone I worked at IEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! and would pronounce it :)
I downloaded the archived data sheet that Fran referencesd I'm amazed that this firm is still at the address shown on their 1969 data sheet. Their website shows that they continue to innovate in display design.
@@erickschumacher1294 I took the office of an older guy who had as a screen saver "who is john galt" and then next office over was a guy named Mike who invented CCFL . .my supervisor was a tall redheaded woman.
@@erickschumacher1294 were you there when they decided to "ruggedize" the 42" plasma screens, that was 1997. I was hired during a period that felt like the company was conflicted between the status quo and adopting new ideas. Status quo actually adopted new ideas but then didn't recognize itself. Confusing idea, yes it was. it was like a sinking boat tried to put the sky below it to stay atop the water.
... and your bench is nicely organized like mine: last used materials and tools are used to push previously used tools and materials away from the central work area lolol
thats normal :) Also here lol
I have seen a teenage daughter's bedroom tidier than this.
Einstein was unorganized to. Great minds don’t worry about making things look good they just want to create. That’s my excuse for being a slob.
I love how you see some videos and the freaking soldering iron looks untouched. And then you have labs of people that do things. Like hers! I love it.
Another unique an amazing video, Fran! Keep them coming! Thank you! :-)
Reminds me of the old "Magic Eye" tuning aids on receivers from the early 1960's.
Julia Marshall I loved those. My father had an old Webcor reel to reel tape recorder that had one to set the recording level. I remember talking in to the microphone and watching the little phosphor eye "talking" with me. Very cool to me back in the day! I'd love to make a project with one to relive those times.
Fireship1 I have that webcor Chacago also
Hah! I was just about to say the same thing.
I had one of those tubes. I think my uncle gave it to me. I was too young at the time to appreciate it. Don't know what happened to it.
Magic eyes predate the 60s by several decades.
At the time, I recall being told that transistors were a passing fad. Never make any power, too noisy, fragile, low frequency only ... which was kind of true for a CK722 . 1700 volts wasn't all that much considering 450 volts was a fairly common plate voltage and I lost count of how many times I took 14 Kv shocks when I was converting a TV to a scope ( ok I was 12 and a the anode connection was behind the chassis ) but I can see the established tube engineers thinking this was the way to go.
..I remember when you could (as a hobbyist) only get 2 types of transistors...CK722 and 2N107......and high-voltage rectifier tubes were being replace by Silicon Rectifiers..!
I built a radio in 1958 that used a silicon rectifier...fit right into a fuse socket...plans from Popular Electronics....the radio still used a couple tubes for everything else...no transistors....
Doug Ankrum , recall adding a resistor to make the silicon diodes a closer match to a 5U4.
sporadic -Z , I still have a working NeHe gas laser , speaking of a 2.5 Kv power supply.
On this side of the Pond, Mullard ruled, and we had the OC71, with a cutoff frequency of 350kHz, and a noise figure which was unbelievable. Scrape the paint off and you had a photosensitive device which was quite useful. The OC72 was its 'power output stage' counterpart, usually used in push-pull, giving around 200mW of audio, if you used heatsinks. Mullard later developed RF transistors with internal screens, so four leads out of the bottom of the aluminium can. Top it off with the OA81 diode as a detector, and you could build a radio receiver which could run quite happily on a single dry cell at 1.5 Volts. Later on, we had the OC200 and OC201 transistors which were symmetrical, in that you could even connect them the wrong way around (Collector to positive instead of to negative) and they would still work. All devices were Germanium, and mostly point contact, not Silicon wafer, so everything had to be properly biased, in an attempt to reduce thermal drift, which plagued Germanium semiconductors. You could destroy them with soldering iron heat in around ten seconds, too. The ubiquity of PNP transistors meant that ground was almost always positive. Happy days.
Did the photo transistor trick too, and later pried the metal off a ceramic case 4164 to make a crude imaging element. Worked but they had a curved epoxy layer over the silicon so a bit distorted and really was 2 32K bit elements with a bar between. Tube days, a 12 year old armed with the warning not to push a rectifier over 25 Kv is of course going to play with X rays too :P . I think I recall seeing Nimo tubes on a Dr Who episode, wonder if it was the one filmed at a working nuclear power plant.
Fran, not sure if you have seen the channel by " Photoinduction " ? He has shown some incredibly rare & large mercury diodes & a very rare "Nernst" lamp along with lots of chaotic crazyness, you may find some of it very interesting.
I believe general electric was developing a miniature version of this. My grandfather Herold walker was an engineer for them for 40 years. He had patents that were property of ge for things such as a machine he invented to test light bulbs for correct gasses content with polarized light to spot defective ones quickly. Absolutely wonderful video!
This might be a bad memory, but back in the 80's my dad was a tchnisian in an oil refinery. P{art of his job was running the control room. I remember nimo tubes (I didn't know what they were called then) and I thought they were pretty cool compared to the nixi tubes I'd seen in other places.
You drunk friend?
Can't believe I only just found your channel.
Subbed!
Who needs a fancy edited intro when you have a little diddy like that? "It's Fraaaaan (again) in the laaaaab. FRAAN LAAB!"
agreed. too many pages have stupid intros. just get on with it already.
That part reminded me of Linda from 'Bob's Burgers', which is a compliment because every character on that show is hilarious
frans the best.
Isn't she on mfc?
I love this lady
I found this channel seeing some vintage music equipment videos, which were great, and now I'm finding out Fran has videos on all sorts of super interesting subjects. Great stuff!
Thanks for this, Fran..truly excellent presentation and content. I suppose you have a rockin’ set of Nixie tubes…
I really liked this video. I really liked the display and how you've kept a tiny bit of elecro-tech history for us, and I like your engineering a LOT. Bravo
Thank you for showing the operation of the rarest display on Earth!
From a technology course I took more than 40 years ago, I believe those Nimo tubes were used on some continous-tuning HF-VHF-UHF radio receiver, which required a frequency display that generated no internal interferences. The Nimo requires the same complex bias of an oscilloscope tube, but that is dwarfed by the complexity and cost of such all-frequencies tube radios for special customers. I want to emphasise that I heard in a teaching course about the tube, but I have never seen it. My hands-on experience is limited to devices like the EM80.
Thanks for the video - and for the incredible patience needed to put together all the power supplies, the bias circuitry and the drive logic...
People like Fran get me so motivated
Just found your channel surfing around learning about electronics. Your videos are excellent. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and passion. Awesome. This is what TH-cam and social media should be like. Shared knowledge and experience. Good stuff!
You ROCK Fran! Love your style, you are such an engaging speaker. God bless.
Ended up here after an AvE video and am very pleased, you have another subscriber
That was my reaction too -- it's like AvE for wireheads.
You will be seriously disappointed.
Inflation calculator says that $29.95 in 1969 is $201 in 2017. Whoa-yeah.
So basically a 4 digit clock would cost about half as much as a new 1969 VW Beetle
Makes me think of the “green eye” tuning tunes of old tube radios.
Me too I don't see why they could not have used one of those in a different way and not had to use 1700 volts
@@ronalddaub5049 the reason why it takes soo much voltage to drive the tube is due to the heater inside the tube, a NIMO tube is basically a micro CRT
A nice piece of history this.
I remember admiring an old rackmounted geiger counter where my dad worked (in the 1960's) with these instead of Nixie or Dekatron tubes, and thinking that it looked the bees knees. And yes, the zero was burned in on all of the tubes - visible even through the pale grey contrast filter.
These days, I have a hankering for Dekatron counters - just because they were always nice and warm in the lab.
Thanks for a great video Fran! I started working for Hewlett-Packard on January 26th of 1973 at the tender age of 19 as a trainee tech repairing the HP35 calculators and saw a lot of technology there over the 22 years that I worked for them and I had never seen or even heard of the NIMO tube until I saw your video today, so thanks for helping to enlighten an old technician and remind me that I don't know everything (which actually isn't to hard ;D). When you showed the One Plane display towards the end of the video (which I had seen and even played with at a friend's home years ago) I noticed that IEE was based in North Hollywood which is where we live and now I'm intrigued to see if I can find there old facility. Thanks again for all the great tech info.
Easiest way in is from Kester & Saticoy go north on Kester and follow it through the hood ahead. @ Keswick you should be able to seee their shipping bldg to the left. Take Keswick 1 block west to Lemona and you have found what remains of IEE. All the brick buildings you see on your tour used to be IEE or related. About half of their buildings are still theirs. My office was in a building that had been there from the beginning. Now it is a marble/granite showroom. AARRRRGH!! what a waste
BTW, technically it is located in Van Nuys
Sometimes when I'm really high I'll see Fran
I don't think Fran will be pleased to see a swarm of bees heading towards her from a really high altitude.
@@Konkacha Phphft.
Thank you for this, Fran. Very interesting. I feel as though I've seen these in older sci-fi or nuclear war type movies. Almost always a countdown display.
Loved this video! So glad i found your channel!
I’m in Conshohocken right now. Only been here for a year, moved here for an engineering job. Im mad I just found your channel. You are amazing Fran. Wish I was in the area longer just so I could say I was by Fran Blanche! Thanks for the cool video.
My dad worked at Defence Electronics Supply Center in Kettering Ohio. As a child I remember holding a box of these tubes, and the catalog. Neat!
Fran, I have some of these tubes (somewhere!) - no they are NOT NIXIE tubes! Mine have a hash and some other non numeric characters and came from demonstration display that was used at the Mullard expo in London (it wasn't only Mullard equipment but an expo of new inventions). Prince Philip attended and I met him at the time. I too obtained them to play with but unlike you never managed to do the job properly so they are in the attic, or the shed, or the outhouse, or..... Do you want one or have you exhausted your interest? I am in England so they'd have to travel well. Rob.
I would love one to play with!
I think getting some to her would be awesome cause she could make a calculator for it. I would love to see it
They said that the tubes were not numerical...so no calculator
I'm also in England Rob, these tubes are pretty interesting. If you are looking to get rid of one or two, I'd love to have one :) I really would
If possible I’d love to make a clock out of some of these.
i was digging with Nixie, Glad this came up!! love your content also your way of talking ^_^
Not sure why I was suggested this video, especially after being over 1 year old. What's more puzzling is why I'm still watching it 15 min in...
@Pool Bal there's a moron in every comment section. You are ours.
You may not have needed the transistor driver you made, but you could hang it on the wall as art.
Beautiful job. (Chef's kiss)
Why anyone would dislike this woman and her knowledge is beyond me.
And 40 years later, a company called Vu1 got the equally wacky idea to use a miniature CRT as a light bulb -- the ESL (Electron Stimulated Luminescence) light bulb. Needless to say it was an idea that didn't catch on.
Well it's settled then - get three more of these tubes and two Vu1's for the : for a clock. Easy!
That was my idea when I was 11 or 12! Wondered if it could be morefficienthan a fluorescentube.
After the haul video you're a lot closer to that clock project ;-)
Fran Blanche any progress here?
Whoa, cool! Can you tell me anything more about it? Was it powered directly from the AC socket, or did it need its own solid state power supply - - or a combo of both?
I mean what kind of ac/dc adaptor goes with it, or inside it(its base)?
Someone broke one of these to expose the matrice, it's pretty interesting as it has the numbers laid on it. I wonder if the round version (as the broken one is rectangle) is displayed in a carousel style or different.
I think that with the technology we have today in tubes (the slight, but considerable advances in power consumption) we could make more of these. Even as a DIY level, i can see this happening. OF COURSE, the price would be high, but hey, we're making Nixie tubes, again, after so long. One of these, isn't much more complicated.
Well, it's basically a a slightly more complex variant of a CRT display. (relatively speaking - I imagine the kind of colour SVGA tubes used in the late 90's might be a touch more difficult. Or not. Who knows?)
It's an interesting thought that you could make such things as a hobby.
Though CRT's were pretty dangerous to develop. (apparently a lot of the earliest designs produced large amounts of radiation. I forget what type. X-rays I believe. - not the healthiest thing to be exposed to.)
Still, can't be as bad as semiconductor manufacturing.
And I know for a fact someone did that at hobby scale - quite an ordeal just to make your own transistors...
(The problem with semiconductors is that commercial manufacturing quickly moved towards using chemicals that are amongst the most deadly you could think of - odourless gases that can kill you if you inhale them. Fun.)
Some of these things are definitely doable, but at a hobby scale it carries a lot of potential hidden risks for the unwary...
I'd love to see someone do it though. XD
LEDs and a light mask are an interesting idea. Ultraviolet LEDs could make the phosphor coating glow in the same way the electron gun did. You'd need lenses to focus the UV LEDs, though; that would add a bit of complexity.
Well now at least, someone in China will be tooling up to flood the market with these.. they are just too cool not to be wanted by every tech head on the planet.
But it would be safer.
It was already done, the tech behind it is known, you could even get a broken one for reverse engineering if a teenager can make a breeder reactor in his garage I can't see why an electric engineer wouldn't be able to make one of these. I think that the issue might be with people not wanting it. Why waste time bringing some old crap back if few people will buy it.
Making a microprocessor is magic though.
You are so cool.. I envy your skill and knowledge.
66 year old female here...
So you have no knowledge about anything?
Sagans Run Don’t envy, go and learn new things on-line!
My Mom learned to drive at age 60. 24 years later, she is itching to get back in her car again but the lockdown means that she has to stay home and I get her groceries from the store. She used a Windows PC at work but in January 2018, she got an iMac, an iPad and she has an iPhone and handles them like a boss to make crafts and cards for a local thrift store.
When I worked in a school, pupils would always say things were “impossible”. So we moved around some of the letters to read “I’m possible” - so something small and move on to more complicated things later. Good luck!
just got alerted by TH-cam of this video. Very very amazing. Thanks for the clip!
never seen this channel before but liked the video within the first 8 seconds... Great vibes.
Wow, I just discovered your channel, great stuff, you are just adorable!
Never heard of these. In the 60s I worked at a NASA satellite tracking station that had Nixie clocks in many of the racks - just loved them!
Ashley Booth Build one! I did last year just for kicks. I made a plexiglass enclosure for it so that stray fingers don't get zapped! I love the glow it produces at night in my living room. There are lots of kits online if you don't want to cobble up your own parts and design a board.
Fireship1 I have built one and now building an Elector GPS locked one!
Thank you for the video, thats so awsome that you put this together!! And it looks so old school bomb shelter style. You rock!
Fran: Very nice treatise on this very rare tube. In 1971 we had the very early LED readouts like the Monsanto MAN1 and MAN4 7-segment displays. We knew it was the end of the line for tubes like poor old Nimo and Nixie. -- Bill
You are amazing! Thanks so much for this in-depth view! I didn't understand all (most) of it, but it makes me excited to learn new things. Well done! :-)
Congratulations! Think how many people are missing this because they don't know how cool you are! LOL Your "do it yourself mounting" for the NIMO is not only ingenious, but highly functional!
Better let them in what a "compactron" is.
Given their high operating voltage, would they have been immune to an EMP perhaps?
You're an inspiration to all pedal builders! Great channel and work :)
Hi Fran! Thanks for the content. You're helping me sleep. My mind races at night, so your interesting yet calm videos help me settle down and relax.
How have I not found your channel before?!? Love the controlled chaos of your lab.
I knew about nimo tubes,but had never seen one,let alone one working. Thanks!
Entertaining and informative. Liked and subbed.
Can't help thinking I've seen these in 70s British sci-fi TV shows. Perhaps the BBC was their only customer?
i thought for sure i have seen them in the old Moonbase 3 series or more likely the great UFO tv show, seems to me Shado HG was full of great electronic gizmos,!
maybe Dr Who.....
Great video Fran. I had never heard of the nimo tube. Maybe they all went down with the Nautilus :)
Except no Nautilus "went down".
Dangerous is an exaggeration, the high voltage generator would be current limited so that even if you touched it, the voltage would drop away dramatically.
The Focus supply on a colour CRT was approx 6KV and you could easily draw an arc from your finger and sometimes you only noticed it was happening due to the ozone smell.
I don't know why I love this so much but it's cool as hell. I do love gadgets so I guess that's why I love this so much but I have to say well done Fran I really enjoyed watching this.
Lol Fran don't be disappointed. It's very cool. I love it and glad I got to see it in action. Kind of seems like something you would have in an elevator.
Unobtanium!
It pleases me the retro look that the Nimo has. It should be funny as well to perform experiments with other kind of display tubes of 1950/60s like typotron or the charactron , even rarer than Nimo.
Back in the 70s I started my career in Television repairs. Black and white TVs used 10,000 volts and Color used 25,000 volts. Was this voltage at the time particularly dangerous? Well one employer I was working for would turn on the main board without the CRT connected and Ould hold the high voltage cap in his hand and allowed the high voltage arcs to go through his hand. I don't recommend any one else trying it but the power transformers also known s flyback trnsformers used extremely low amounts of current,
By contrast a microwave oven magnetron tube is 5.000 volts but high current and will definitely cause enough current to kill some one.
What kind of current does your high voltage circuit supply?
25kv are you sure? i thought 18 to 20kv was the maximum to avoid x-ray production
@@MrHBSoftware X rays are always produced more or less when bending accelerated particle beams like in a CRT TV or oscilloscope. However there is a lot of lead added to the glass used for CRT tubes so the radiation can't get out and harm you.
@@johnpekkala6941 thanks for the answer, i am familiar with crt tvs (50´s and 60's sets) as you can see from my channel's videos but i was unaware of such high voltages present at the crt anode, i thought that from 20kv upwards there would be the risk of too much x-rays escaping from the glass (i explained myself wrong)..thats the reason the more modern crts have x-ray protection where if the high voltage goes up it shuts down the horizontal circuit to avoid x-radiation going to the user. i always thought the safe limit was 20kv
my dad tried to tune an old 60s/70s color TV with a screw driver....
crossed two contacts..... and ended up getting blown across the room
didnt hurt him...... just woke him RIGHT up
@@MrHBSoftware : 25 Kv was common on color tvs. Then came the brightness race, where 27" or larger tubes would run at 27 Kv, or I seem to remember up to 30 Kv. I have a tube projector in my basement, where the 5" (5.5"?) tubes run 33 Kv. The front of those tubes are liquid cooled. A teacher told me that the large power tubes had the glass darken due to X rays attacking the lead in the glass. (6BK4, 6LQ6, 3A3). You weren't supposed to run the set with the shields off This is bringing back memories... Anybody remember the ion trap on B&W tvs?
Great video Fran .TH-cam is showing your older videos
Back in the early 70s at my first job with a TV station I was servicing some broadcast equipment that was using Nimo tubes in the digital display. There were very few devices using Nimo tubes. Then they switched over to Nixi tubes. I remember there were modifications to Nixi tubes.
Looks like something from the movie Brazil.
Here's one that was used with a telescope: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/2351317227
Denis Vermeirre WOW!
Indeed! The telescope was commissioned in 1974 and much of the compute was built around 1972, so the timelines make sense. The back of the cabinet looked like this: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/1229018916/in/album-72157600378447133/ When we were decommissioning the old computer, we had to keep the control panel operational, and we had visiting astronomers who were nosy. So I put this sign up when someone slightly electrocuted themselves on the 1750volts: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/3469662937/in/album-72157600378447133/ You mention the wide viewing angle: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/1101900648/in/album-72157600378447133/ The labels on this photo tell roughly what each part of the control console did: www.flickr.com/photos/spacelama/3263021413/in/album-72157600378447133/
hmmmmm
Tim Connors what did you guys end up doing with the tubes?
No idea - but our management weren't exactly famous for getting value from their surplus equipment, so my guess is that they've been hoarded in the old-timer's shipping container.
Program it so it displays 867 5309
Or 634-5789
Most millenials have no idea what you mean!
Tommy and Jenny.
Can't, the largest of these tubes cannot display more than 6 decade numbers at a time, but I still get the music reference
Or 800 588 2300
very much of topic .. but every time I view your videos .. I fall just a little more in love with you ... I guess you have heard that few times lol .. love your work and the amount of time and effort you put into every video you produce .. keep up the great work
Why would anyone dislike this. She's great. Awesome work
Visually reminds me of the Magic Eye tubes from the radios from the 30s and 40s. But definitely a strange build. Seems like the neon digital tubes would have been the easiest way to go in those days
Is it possible the shadowing is not reflectance/refractivity from the illuminated glass, but electrons bouncing off the screen and being reaccellerated into the screen by the field? Doesn't look quite right for optical to me.
It's retro and cool looking! They would make an awesome clock! I see you need a beefy power supply to run it.
Yea very expensive clock. I will get an app for that.
First time viewer & I think you're really #radical #groovy #farout #waycool ... #NimoTubes #NixieTubes cousin :) #FranBlanche #electronicswizerd
Wow that’s freaking cool!
Ultra rare and what a circuit. Nice job lady.
Fran always has the best toys.....;)
fran....those were used in "certain" types of research equipment(where they were seen last and in actual use by yours truly). past that it never caught on. this due mostly due to the high voltages it requires that you mentioned. there were indeed multi digit units produced and in use.
the edit: crissakes.....this reminded me of how old i am getting chronologically. :->
yeah......our uncle has a lot of the best toys to fettle ;-).
past that i cannot give more info.however, there is a surplus outlet in the midwest
that has enough period equipment there that the odds of running across one of these tubes would be fairly good.
Thanks Fran!!
Fran, after stumbling on this video and watching most of it- I am quite impressed. I have determined 2 things though 1) you are really super intelligent (not that you need me to tell you that 2) you have way too much time on your hands ;)
I'm subscribing
OMG! You talk like a fella. I can't believe you're so electro-machanically clever. You're a woman of my heart. I can't wait to see more of your videos. I am REALLY impressed. Thank you so much for being who you are and doing what you do.