My 10 day endurance test shows just how useless these modern green "neon" phosphorescent display lamps are. Anyone know of a better one being made today? Comment below..
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I've seen some "mint" green LEDs that seem to be a phosphor-based green and if diffused would give a much more similar glow to the neons than your typical greens, if you can get your hands on some of those then perhaps LEDs could be an option.
Ar will easily ionize at 240V if the pressure is low enough. the lavender/magenta/pink (depending on the pressure) color is very impressive.
But you are right, at full pressure Ar takes a higher V. We melted the guts in vacuum heat treat furnace this way (Mo elements and Al2O3 insulators were destroyed).
I have a bag of what appears to be similar to what you have, I was planning on building a level meter so I got a few bags in different colours but after watching this, I'm not so sure that I'm going to achieve what I was planning….. I might have to run some experiments at different currents to see what sort of life I can get out of them before I go any further….
Yeah, once I bought two green neons, like these, I put them in place of two regular orange neons without any modification. It doesn't went well at all: I can't remember how much time they lasted, but the two green neon darkened then burned out pretty fast! Maybe 1 or 2 or 3 weeks? The time was pretty short, of course! 😶 👎
To end on a positive note, I have two salvaged regular orange neons with their series resistor: I glued them into the base of a gutted out defective compact fluorescent lightbulb, and… Well… They are actually lit up every day when I'm at home, and they are working now at least since several years without any intensity loss! 👍 Take this, cheap garbage green neons! 😁
1.75mA is a HUGE current for such a small neon! It's not enough for pretty explosion, but is enough to degrade their life. Operating current should be about 100-200μA, the absolute maximums ratings are typically between 500-800μA(!!!).
And there is another issue — the serial resistor. Theese small ¼W or ½W resistors are not intended to hold a huge voltage across them. There are power limit and also voltage limit, which both should be respected. It's wise practice not to exceed 30V on ¼W resistor and 50V across a ½W resistor.
I bought some cheap illuminated switches from ebay for a couple of power supplies i built. They have green neon style lamps in them & they becames unusable after a few weeks. Green led time for me.
Multicomp / CML MC08030000 is a green neon, available here in the UK from Farnell (ie, Newark / Element14 / Avnet). Farnell product page says 550uA but datasheet says design current 1mA. Life 12,000 hours. Rated 85v AC / 100v DC, Recommended 56K at 100-120V, 180K at 220-250V.
Low quality metal electrodes that sputter too easily onto inner surface of the bulb, I remember some soviet fridge that had good green neon bulb as a power indicator. InGaN green LED's have same color, I replaced one in a cheap plug-in overvoltage protection device and it has been turned on 24/7 since 2018, just drive it at 1mA current and it lasts for years with same light output to these neon bulbs._
Hi Fran It was a while ago, but I also have arthritis I live in a van Melbourne VIC Australia, and I'm so out of condition even doing the shopping, coming into warmer weather know so back to doing pushups I love doing electronic projects 555 timers are so cool thanks so much for your channel, 👍🌞
We go through this all the time in the pinball community. Many owners like to fit their games with LEDs (the average pinball machine contains well north of 100 miniature incandescent bulbs) for their longer life, lower energy consumption and crisper, more vibrant color.
However, poor quality LED kits, mostly imported from China, have shown up on the market. When installed, they look fine, but they start to noticeably dim after as little as 100 hours.
Huh, sorry if this sound rude but 1) you cheap out on the supplier 2) you overdrive them 3) you’re surprised of the results. All this screams for a more Cartesian, serene approach. Can you really compare a high-end 80’s Sony assembly to this rushed, subpar contraption?
Lab Log, Supplemental: I did not mention that the 1.75ma current is what the original SONY lamps in the DT-30 were run at, which is the reason I set up this test bed for the replacement lamps I had installed that failed there. This test was to run them at the same current draw as the originals from the 70's and observe what happened.