Nixie Tubes

[mlabbee]

I ran across these recently (I'd forgotten they even existed). It occured to me that they might be fun to add into a HV tube pre-amp/distortion. Since you already have the high voltage required to run these things, you could tie one into your volume or tone and use it as an indicator. (Too bad they don't have single tubes that go to eleven! :-) )

Has anyone ever played around with these?  Any thoughts on a way to control the number in conjunction with your volume nob without haveing a direct path between you and the HV?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

If you used a STEREO volume knob, then you could generate a control voltage from the second pot.
And then run this into a LED bar indicator chip wired in dot mode.(forget the number, one of those National Semi ones). That gives you you lines out, one of which is ON for particular level of DC from the pot.
Then you have some circuitry to boost the voltage of each of the output lines to match the nixie requirements.
Wish I'd though of this BEFORE i gave my nixies away :x  :cry:

[mlabbee]

Hmmm - how about something that responds to LEDs lighting up, like an LDR?  Do they make LDRs that have enough resistance to kill a 140-170V potential (operating voltage of nixies)?  An article on nixies in an instrument shows a similar logic circuit using lamps (I guess it was pre LED),

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

http://home.earthlink.net/~jasonrandharper/NixieTransistors.pdf

just google "driving nixie", plenty of stuff there.

[ExpAnonColin]

Instead of using a stereo pot, you could use a pot that controls the control voltage for an LED/LDR combo with 2 LDRs.

-Colin