Bigass Alphanumeric Nixies Conquer The Earth!!! 

Get in touch with Dalibor Farný (he makes nixies and he has a YT channel), he might be interested in getting your defective nixie for reverse-engineering purposes, and if we're lucky, he might even start making some :-)

This is so cool! This looks like something you would find in the TVA !

"Where's that thing?" I am, no doubt, the only guy with this problem, but I find myself scrolling down while watching so that I am not distracted by Fran being her stunning Fran-ness. Anyway, she is the most interesting and "how it's done" pedal tutor I've come across.

I can't believe the color bands on your resistors are facing random directions! :D

Last year my wife got me a Nixie tube watch Big fan of nixie tubes Awesome project looks really nice

Very cool! I have a pair of these tubes given to me when I was kid by an uncle who was a scientist at Bell Labs... they are a treasured keepsake!

Fran's new hairdo looks very good. I want to complement her on the new BIG hair.

Watching that Nixie tube working is so satisfying....

I worked at a TV station in NYC (WNEW Ch-5) in 1966 that used big Nixie tubes like these in their Visual 2000 on air switching computer. It brought back memories for me.

Those tubes used to be cheap and common on the surplus market. No longer. I had one in my junk box years ago. The sockets were always hard to find, you have TWO of them. Most people just soldered wires to the tube pins, or used socket pins from tube sockets.

Stripes reference! Razzle Dazzle! Gentlemen, it's party time...battalion style.

Back in the mid 1970's one of my fellow soldiers and I decided we wanted to build an electronic catalog of radio frequencies for our communications section, we were with HHQ 3RD Armored Cavalry stationed at Fort Bliss at the time. So we sat about and began trying to build a setup using just diodes and some of the smaller versions of those nixi tubes which were, at the time affordable enough to play with. We worked months trying to figure out how to get the device that was becoming larger and larger every week to display our frequencies with unit designation but it was quickly becoming a rats nest of wires, most everything was point to point wiring and back then we really didn't have a great understanding of how to properly use diodes and transistors to get our device to have a hard wired memory. About the time we had it working for just the HQ frequencies the inspector from the NSA appeared in his black suit, sun glasses and ever present brief case filled with frightening regulations. He looked at our project and played with it for a few minutes, then pulled a sticky label from his brief case and stuck it across the top of the device, the label: SECRET CRYPTO! and that was the end of it. We could not take it out of the vault, and the NSA scanner said it was capable of being read from outside the vault so it could never be turned on again. I asked him if I could pull all the parts we paid for out of our own pocket, he replied that it must remain in the condition it was when he applied the classification. Then to add insult to injury, when he left, he decided our device was to dangerous to leave in some back water Regimental Headquarters on the Mexican Border, and took it, taking it back to his HQ in Va. Weeks, nay MONTHS of hard work, out the door because some damn bureaucrat decided he liked our toy and took it away from us. I guess when you get down to it, though, the numbers we were playing with were indeed classified so perhaps we did it to ourselves.

Be sure to watch this one until after the Patreon credits. If you've seen the credits many times, it's O.K. to fast forward over them. 😀

Fran - I have fixed MANY tubes with the shorted pins as you've pointed out. It happens a lot even in simply shipping the tubes. You basically have to smack the tube into the palm of your hand. I have even taped them to (for example) a 2x4 board and kind of let them fall a short distance to the ground. I have been lucky enough to never having any break on me, but had a few I didn't dare risk hitting any harder. The corners (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right) seem most susceptible to this happening. They have never gone back to being shorted. My guess is that it happened during shipping to you.

Want 4 more? Grabbed some a few years back, and I have no idea what I planned to do with them. They might as well go to someone who will do something cool with them.

Oh man, I had three sets (6 tubes, three boards) about 7 years ago, but we had to severely downsize so I sold them on eBay. I wish I had been following you on RU-vid back then; I would have been glad to send them to you. Aw well, c'est la vie.

I would get with glassslinger RU-vidr that hand makes tubes. He has has made his own Nixie tube and may be able to repair the faulty tube. Very good channel for tube fans!

Nicely done. A Nixie tube demo and a work of art. Wouldn't it have been cool if the equipment that originally used these had gone through a Fran-style animation on startup. That surely would have brought a smile to the equipment operators.

I want to give this a thumbs up, but with "555" up-votes showing currently, I couldn't bring myself to change it. Thumbs Up Fran!

I absolutely love all these displays.

Cool device. The number of different displays that were used from the 50's to the 70's is amazing. I miss the innovation. There hasn't been anything really new for 30+ years now.

Many years ago when working in R&D, I was given an Oscilloscope to repair from the test department. I repaired the scope, and as I was lifting the scope off my bench (I'd coiled the fixed mains lead in one hand and then lifted the scope) accidentality dropped it, but managed to stop the scope from hitting the floor by gripping on the mains lead, however the scope swung and hit me on the knee. I thought I'd better test the scope again before giving it back, and found that it didn't work. It turned out that the jolt caused when I dropped the scope had bent one of the electrodes inside the neck end of the CRT causing a short. I never thought I'd ever see another short inside a once working tube, until the one Fran has just shown.

I have 6 of these B7971s too. Positively massive when compared with the tiny JAN7977 that I'm working with right now :-) As for the single anode resistor causing uneven brightness, I thought about a possible solution some time ago, though I never tested it: 1) remove the anode resistor altogether (connect the anode directly to the HV supply); 2) move the resistors from the base to the emitters of the transistors. The bases can be connected straight to the micro or, optionally, use some additional resistors to limit the current drawn from the micro if the emitter resistors are too low value. The micro will drive the bases to either 0V (off) or to whatever voltage it runs at (presumably 5V). The emitters will be about 0.65V lower than that, which means that the voltage across the emitter resistors will be fixed (around 4.35V). Fixed voltage across a fixed resistor means constant current, most of which comes from the collector, i.e. the Nixie cathode. Tailor the emitter resistor values to the segments that they are connected to (higher resistance for the physically smaller segments) and you have a constant current driver circuit with uniform brightness for each segment and less parts than the current circuit (if the base resistors are omitted).

Have you ever heard of or seen a Charactron tube? Apparently it was a dual stage deflection tube that had one deflection stage that aimed the electron beam at a character stencil plate, and a second deflection stage to then direct that character shaped beam at the desired position on the phosphor face of the tube. Just dropping this here after coming across a reference to the device.

Nixies have the numbers behind each other. For me, this is more like a Panaplex tube. But it's beautiful!

Outstanding Fran! I have a Raymond Weisling “4 letter word” clock with B7971tubes. I, along with several other folks was also ripped off by Mr. Weisling by paying for the second or perhaps it was the third revision kit and never receiving it. I really enjoyed this video, Brought back memories of lots and lots of soldering.

You can even run the ´328P with internal oscillator, so even less supporting components :)

I have a device I built in 1975 with 6 of these. It scrolls the message "EAT HERE". I used a single 14-pin 74141 driver IC intended for a small numeric tube. To keep the IC from burning out immediately, since it was delivering at least 20 times its rated capacity, I had to dim the tubes. Since the IC had 10 states, I was able to time the 10 states of my display such that the IC can last about an hour. (The duty cycle of each driver output is only 10%). Each tube in turn shows "E-A-T-blank-H-E-R-E-blank-blank", which is the 10 states. I made a board of about 75 250V diodes, with 10 ground points which directed the current to the appropriate pins. The main problem I've had with the device is corrosion on the pins and sockets. I'm sure there's some substance I could coat the pins with to help them conduct, so if anyone reading this can tell me what to use, please reply. I'm not an electronics whiz, just a retired programmer who isn't afraid to tinker. By the way, my device could have been made with any number of tubes, but I reasoned that it would be difficult to read with fewer than 6. I made a simple 1-tube device from a microscope box as a wedding present. It had no logic, just a transformer and 16 switches so you could draw a shape, like a peace sign.

To get current limiting for each segment try operating the driver transistors in common base mode. Connect all the bases to a fixed voltage (+5V) and connect each emitter to the Atmel output port via a suitable limiting resistor. When the port is high the transistor and segment is off but when the port is low there will be ~4.4V across the resistor so the segment current will be the same as the resistor current. 12K emitter resistors would limit the current to 360uA per segment if that's acceptable. Unfortunately the Atmel outputs will need to be inverted compared to the original program so reprogramming required 😞. The anode resistor is no longer required but a lower value resistor configured to turn on a pnp transistor which in turn shuts off the 200V supply if excess current is detected would be useful additional protection.

Ma Bell hookup wire. I left my bench and my parts stash at my parents house when I moved out Most all of it was destroyed in a flood a few years later. Many years have passed now and the thing I regret not going back for was a box of small skeins of the color coded wires pulled from the large cables in an obsolete Horizon PBX. Having such a broad choice of color combos made troubleshooting so much easier.

When I was a kid (early 70's), the cheezy UHF station here in St. Louis didn't run any programming during the day. They simply pointed a camera at several lines of these things scrolling stock ticker symbols and prices. I don't know if the display was local, or it was simply a video feed from another location... Fascinating stuff, for about 30 seconds. lol I also remember B-7971's being available in the later 70's through various surplus dealers...

Great to see this running. I like the fact that they included a cursor electrode too. The hours spent on that led test board are not lost on us either Fran. :o)

This has to be in the background in all your videos now. It's completely mesmerising.

8:46 Later the letter V said: "Understand me? Catching my drift....? Or am I being obtuse?"

I'd probably try putting smallish resistors in the emitter of the BJTs, given a fixed logic high voltage the emitter will sit the BE drop lower. Looking at the datasheets of the MPSA42 and B-7971 the segment current it 1.5 - 3 mA, the beta of the MPSA42 is around 75 in the 2 mA drain current region at room temperature so the base current will be around 27 uA, given your 10K base resistors that drops about 270 mV from the 5 volt logic and the BE voltage will be 700 mV at that current, therefore about 4 volts on the emitter. Around 2K resistors in the emitter will set the segment current at 2 mA.

Tubes are wonderfully bright, bright in a wonderful way. Though not as wonderful nor bright as my fav host Fran Blanche! 🤍🤍

I love NIXIEs and retro-tech in general. Back in the day, if you wanted alpha-numerics then by god you had to earn them. Nothing was particularly simple back then.

If you could get enough of those tubes, you could build a board that would scroll "FRANS LAB"

"Lamperts, that's a really word, lamperts"? That whole thing, lol.... Love it. Also, I guess if you wanted to italicize your digits, you could just tilt each tube to the same degree in your overall display fixture.

I own a Sony Sobax 500 calculator. I saved it from getting thrown out at my old company. They just thought it was an old piece of junk. And it works perfectly. Of course it is Nixie tube.

I built a 6-digit direct-drive clock with these back in 2007. The prices on these have skyrocketed. I sold my 6 for 100.00 each 5 years ago, and they go higher!

Bs, Ds and Vs are actually the most beautiful ones

That’s so cool. My Son bought me a Nixie Clock years ago

Splendid! That is so cool. IIRC, there are similar-sized vacuum fluorescent single-character alpha-numeric displays, but when I just looked all I could find were the large 7-segment variety.

Cool video this channel is cool with the retro 70s and such plus being born in 67 the 70s and 80s are close to my heart................are you ready for th summer! Are you ready for the good times and such .😁👍

I'm pretty sure you can get argon - filled nixie tubes, but there pretty rare ;)

Nixie tubes are so fascinating for some reason. I finally bought an in-12 kit from Ebay via Ukraine to the states. It only took about a week to come to the east coast

That's a lovely tube.

9:07 The Y is on a slant because the datasheet is shared with the smaller B-5971. That tube only has 13 cathodes; it omits the underline and optimises to two vertical cathode in the centre down to just one. So displaying a Y with a vertical stem wouldn't have been possible on that tube. But Y is the only character in the A-Z, 0-9 set which would conceivably need the central cathode to be split top to bottom. It makes you wonder why they went to the trouble! Anyway, thanks for the inspiration to finish my FLW. I've had the tubes for years and they now seem to be twice the price I paid for them. PCB designed and ordered from jlc.

I have 4 of those built into a clock, driven only in 7-segment mode unfortunately, by a GIM AY-5-1224 Clock chip. They cost £1 each at the time, as did each socket! I built it in the '70's and it ran for years in my University lab. Took it home in the late '80's and still have it upstairs!

Yes, foot-Lamberts are a unit of luminance, it's equal to 1/pi candela/ft^2

I remember these being in surplus flyers in the early 70's , wished I'd bought a case of them back then .

What an amazing tube and build! So cool. Thank you Fran!

Awesome! Great job Fran!! Inspiring indeed!

Fran, that defective tube is very easy to fix. All you have to do is tape it to a broom handle or a large diameter wooden dowel rod and whack it against the floor a few times, (the broom handle side not the tube side) The broom handle will take the impact but it will shock the crossed cathodes apart. It may take a few attempts but it works. I've done this many times with 100% success. I have over 80 of these tubes in various clocks and also have it's little brothers the 8971 and 5971's. If you need help I'm in Delco, very close to you.

What a gorgeous tube 😍 you have such wonderful toys Fran!

Those would make great score displays for a steampunk-themed pinball machine.

If you drive the base directly with 5 volts (output from the 328P) and instead put a resistor on the emitter, you have a constant current source. Resistance, power loss and power loss at the transistor have to be calculated.

Absolutely stunning work! It's SO cool!

The ending it's remarkable

It looks like the "traces" on the mica circuit board inside the tube are the same sheet metal that the segments in a more traditional Nixie tube are made from. I had always assumed the segments were etched in the same way that you etch the copper on a PCB since they would be too fragile for punching. It would make sense for Burroughs to re-use the process.

Those are some cool displays. They look like the single plane Burroughs Panaplex display inside a single round tube envelope.

If I hadn't known it was supposed to be a 1, I wouldn't have recognized the upside down T as a 1. But then again, here in Germany we always write the little hook on top of the 1, while in America, people tend to leave that out so the 1 looks more like an I or an l and then they put a horizontal line below it to distinguish it, which is really, really weird when considered from my standpoint...

Lovely work Fran

That is SUPER cool Fran! AND it showed up in my recommended list :)

Damn Fran...those tubes are awesome...and the board is really great!

A friend made a clock with the giant Burroughs tubes in the 70's, long before it was retro cool. I was totally memorized by it when I was a kid. When I started into college he called me and said hey I have some stuff for you and I ended up with the key parts to build my own. Sadly he passed away a few years ago after I had moved to FL and I missed the estate sale which would have been awesome.

Really satisfying to watch this tube work !

That thing is amazing, I love it.

Awesome job Fran! Keep up the good work!

Wow that looks super cool.

Thanks for sharing these rare display devices with us, I have never come across these tubes before. Good to see one in action!!

Fran finds yet another old interesting gas tube display. The 1 would look better without the bottom bar as that makes it look like an upside down T. The 5 is exactly the same as an S so the suggestion from Burroughs for the 5 would be worth using. The version of Y looks better than the suggested one.

Fantastic stuff. Thanks for sharing :-) Love your videos.

I love how Big Iron is more wood than iron -- like Old Ironsides (which wasn't iron at all). In a large installation, I wonder if per-tube current limiting isn't actually better, so that each _tube_ will be balanced with its neighbors, rather than more light-dense characters jumping out as brighter. It's trading off segment balance for overall balance. (Well, not better for the tube, they are probably happier with a per-segment current limiter.)

you’re so clever for getting this little display to work!

Fran, this is great!

That's just beautiful Fran

I enjoyed this segment. An ambitious project. Well done!

I know nothing about electronics and can't understand half of what you're talking about. Can't stop watching this channel though.

Bally Midway made the last gas display I worked on, I use to repair their pinball machines among all their other commercial arcade machines, Thanks very much for this video and project, I really enjoyed it Fran👍

Super cool!

I'm in the process of moving...I found 3 of these 'doubles' in a box of stuff I've had since the very early 1970's...paid a couple $ each for them....all those transistors on there in the 'cans' are high-voltage rated...pretty awesome considering we didn't even have Apple computers yet....

OMG! I used to have a bunch of these! Sadly, they were all lost in a flood. I wish I had them now. I think the ones I had even had the top and bottom segments split into 2... can't recall. Thanks so much, Fran! I was using them for a pinball display.

All cool and good. I say, run the "bad" tube at a high voltage and then use some sound waves to vibrate the piece free. Maybe.

Awesome! That was fascinating, and thanks to your videos, i finally feel like I understood most of it. Hoorah!

If you have nimble fingers you can wire the proto board with "wire wrap" size wire. The advantage is that the holes are big enough to take a component wire AND the connecting wire. (too many "wires" in this comment?)

That Is So Cool!

Beautiful demonstration of this tube. Very dazzle dazzle. Like the custom socket you created for that Huge tube.

another lovely video Fran! you've got me sticking around to see the post-credit scenes! waiting for them instead of skipping ahead makes it all the better 😂

Great video - future program idea, have it spell out FRAN LAB during the cycle

those are really awesome.

Awesome project!

The B an D are done that way to prevent confusion with 8 and O. Didn't hurt that the B looks like the old Burroughs logo. :-)

I want to make these tubes. These are my favorite tubes.

That is very cool, and really took me by surprise! I did not realize that such a thing had ever been made. I prefer the looks of the traditional Nixie tube, but this one is still a fun innovation that later led to modern LED displays.

Beautiful

Watching you makes me regret getting rid of an ancient, massive o-scope from Bell Labs, a few years back. It had some tubes in it...maybe some that would have been useful. I enjoy your videos!

You're the Queen of tinkering! And I love this Nixie tubes. Probably, it comes from my childhood: My father worked for Omegä sports timing in the early 70s and he had a lot of these displays. There also were displays consisting of thousand of tungsten bulbs and arm thick cable bundles. I think it was for the Olympic Games in Munich 1972!

So cool!