What's a Takara Booster 200A? Let's Find Out! 

This is correct.

Some old fluorescent lamps also have the problem of having a hard time starting in the dark. Anyone remember the early CFLs that often needed a flashlight as a starter?

@@tglendenning also some are/were radioactive.

100% correct! A word of caution on the radioactive ones. While most used an isotope like Kr-85 or Ni-63 sealed safely inside the bulb, occasionally you will come across an ordinary neon bulb that was painted externally with a radioactive paint, which can easily be flaked off when working on the gear, and contaminate your work area and possibly get ingested or inhaled. A 60's era GE glow lamp catalog I have shows which types were doped to reduce what they called the "Dark Effect".

Agree :)

I was assigned to Yokota in 1983 for a two year tour... I never left except for a 2 year tour to the D.C. area. Still here in Japan and love it. Check out the facebook groups of the Yokota area, you will see old pics from when you were there as well as current ones.

@@JP-rt1to Very cool to meet new folks that lived the Japan experience. I have looked at the Yokota FB page and I really enjoy seeing folks in one of the last remaining AF bases in Japan. There used to be about a dozen bases/posts in the Tokyo area alone. Our sports teams often played the Yokota Panthers back in the 1960's. My High School still has a couple of sites as well. On Facebook it is called Chofu Rules. Our high school was named Chofu. We also have a website - Chofu dot org. I have some friends that still live in Japan. Do you know where the American School in Japan (ASIJ) is? Our housing area was located less than a mile from ASIJ. My old Chofu High School is now the location of the new Ajinomoto Stadium. Glad to see that they put that hallowed ground to good use. Since you view Mr. Carlson's channel, may I assume that you pay regular visits to Akihabra? I used to love that place, and I used to buy all sorts of electronic gear to build my projects there. Cheers!

Sorry, not to get off the subject, how where you treated as an American over there? Did they have any nick names for white Americans?

@@davidsymalla4785 I was only aged 13 through 16 in Japan so I was not mature enough to realize any animosity that might have existed. We lived on a military base about 20 miles West of Tokyo. I must say though that my experience was that, as a group, the Japanese people were the most gracious, polite, and generous people I have ever encountered - even to this day. This is quite remarkable since I was there less than 20 years since WWII ended. We heard of a few anti-American demonstrations and we received notices from the base Commander that USAF personnel and dependents should avoid these events. I never experienced any dissent or protests, and in the four years that I lived there, we heard only one person say "Yankee Go Home" one time; that's it. The only nick name that I was aware of was that we were sometimes referred to as Gaijin (外人) which means foreigner or alien. As with many Japanese words, there can be a myriad of meanings and I think the tone of voice when the word was uttered said a lot about the meaning. I think most of the time Gaijin was neutral and even a term of endearment. In short, living in Japan for four years was one of the most rewarding periods in my life and I loved every minute. I could spend hours describing my experiences there, but I must confine myself to a reasonable space in this off-topic RU-vid comment. Cheers!

@KiloSierraAlpha he did some cool stuff. He fixed a nixie tube voltmeter.

Honestly I feel like he's irritated and doesn't really want to make this video his speech has a little faster his hand gestures or a little bit more pronounced... and his infections are a little bit more solid if that makes sense

@@frantickoala994 0_o

The winter snow outside is taking just a little too long to melt after St. Patrick's and Easter.

@@HighestRank Easter is in April.

Hahaha LOL loved it

Thank you for your kind comment Marcel!

He forgot rubber boots and a helmet.

@@1959Berre Elbow and knee pads too!!! Can't forget the bendy bits!!

Back in the 70's,there were still TV sets coming in for repair that had x-ray generating valves (U.S. tubes) in the EHT regulation department before triplers were widespread. One of our engineers took the back bulge off a scrap TV & attached lead sheet internally to it to protect his manhood...a lead lined jockstrap in effect! Richard (UK)

Thank you for your kind comment Tom!

Oh!! I was going to say I may be related to having a heat source for very cold operation conditions so the conduction could begin, but your answer is more appealing.. and most probably the correct one :)

Many years ago I designed production test equipment for a calculator company. One calculator (I believe it was the SR-20) gave us fits. The device used a Panaplex display, which is a neon gas-discharge display. The setting of the operating voltages was was critical. The problem was, with the top case removed, the display may work perfectly, but as soon as the top, with its window, was installed, the display would have missing segments. Increasing the voltage would make it with with the top on, but when the top was removed, the segment would arc. In this type of display, the hysteresis between trigger voltage and operating voltage was used as a sort of memory. If it triggered on at 75V and would stay lite at 60V. You could bias the entire display at 60V, then hit segments with 75v to lite them up, or 50V to shut them off. Memory was very expensive back then.

That is really neat. I never knew.

it;s a current regulator as the current increases up so dose the resistance limiting the current ( fulfillment resistance increases with temp )

That lamp does NOT need to be located next to the regulator tubes though. I have built several things that use incandescent lamps as current regulators. Many (most) of those are solid state. Gas regulator tubes do not regulate current so a lamp would be a good choice, but lamps were also used to kick start the arc in the tube too.

Welcome to 2021.

Indiskret1 You mean “safety”, not “security”. (I know, in German they’re both “Sicherheit”, but in English they mean different things.)

​@@tookitogo Ah, of course! I'm Swedish, but belong to the same language group, Germanic. WIll change it!

Whats a cigar lighter? LOL. Those were fun to play with. I got burned many times by them.

@@jp040759 Yes, I used to heat it up and then show it to people and then once it had cooled ask them if they were willing to bet me to stick my fingers in the socket! I won every time - only 12V!

I would like to see this as well. This would show the higher options on the switch actually working :)

@@zaprodk and also various loads too.

Ditto. I'd have thought that a no-brainer -- to go all the way to "5", so to speak.

@Conor Hanley the output Voltage of a transformer depends partly on its load. Paul didn't put a (large enough) load on it, so the output at the moment was more than the max. 120 Volts ever needed. Any position higher would give a Voltage out of range of any equipment, so the safety limit kicks in. Would Paul have put a load of (say) 150Wats on it, the output Voltage would drop, and the safety circuit would allow the switch to work in a higher position, thou still with the same max. of 120 Volts on the output. And second, if you would start using the device with an unstable low Voltage, and the Voltage suddenly rises, the output would suddenly rise too. The safety circuit would then demand a lower setting of the switch, so it would turn the device off to warn you. Third I forgot: lower input Voltages would also demand higher switch settings. All three points are to only allow a max. of 120 V out.

Someone has already answered this obviously but I can confirm that those are usually there for assisted conducting of tubes, and another cool,thing to nore is that there is a photelectric effect of neon bulbs that can change conducting voltages of neon bulbs themselves, its not brought up much because its not important in most applications unless there is barely enough striking voltage or you just like to mess with electronics and like to know cool facts because they are normaly just indicator bulbs and often used for some small lighting, in another scenario incandescent bulbs are wired in series as protection devices in some ectronics as well

Indeed

Yep, that is correct.

I was going to guess to provide minimum load for the regulator but this makes more sense. If it was to provide a minimum load it would more likely be a resistor than an incandescent bulb. I didn’t know neon bulbs we’re photosensitive interesting answer.

I discovered that neon bulbs are photosensitive in a cheap motel one night. The light switch had an old neon indicator that flickered like crazy. I found that illuminating the indicator with my iPhone torch (lots of high energy blue photons) made the neon come on solidly with no flicker! You’ll see the same in some designs for nixie clocks that use neon tube ring counters - they add a blue LED to ensure reliable triggering.

@@jacobdykstra8499 have you ever noticed when a neon indicator is starting to go bad AKA failing and starts flickering if rooms completely dark sometimes it will affect the flickering of the neon bulb but when there's significant lights the rate at which it flickers changes?

I will have to try that. I will change the cord anyways as this one isn't polarized, but it would be a neat experiment. Thanks for your input!

You win a cookie. lol

Thanks for watching!

_"from the era when Japan had 50 cycle line voltage at 100 volts"_ We are still in this "era", though. While all of Japan runs on 100V, eastern Japan (including Tokyo) runs on 50Hz, while western Japan (from Nagoya on westwards) runs on 60Hz. And while they occasionally talk about unification, it's not going to happen anytime soon. Other than immediately after disasters, or when buying a microwave oven, you are rarely confronted with the implications of differing frequencies.

Back in the 60's, when I was around 6 or 7 yrs old, my dad messed around with old radios. One day I went into his 'shop' which consisted of an old camper turned into a shop. I plugged in one of the old radios that was in there and went to pick it up, and to my surprise it started vibrating my teeth! Good old hot chassis effect' LOL! I got away from it unscathed, unplugged it, and left, to not mess with dad's old radios again. Of course I later started playing with electricity to 'learn'. Dad NEVER tried to stop me, I guess he figured that'd be the best way for me to learn, and I did. The good old days!

was thinking the exact same thing. would be nice to see the next positions of the switch working

Also I would like to know how they detected the voltage in excess of 120 or so maybe neon bulb and a proper resistor? Or give you one of those voltage reference or regulator a neon bulb style tubes? Properly loaded and resistor to get an accurate voltage trigger. Also some people were saying about the meter be able to register line voltage but not really any it or practical including in the video? One thing they could have done with a digital pulse on the switch but it would be more expensive and taking up more room. Would have been to put an extra pole on the switch and either have an off monitor on switch contacts or something like that. And possibly win the unit was off but in another position the meter would register line voltage. Maybe a second indicator and well? But that's just an idea and maybe it was considered who knows.