Lets see your Nixie Tube equipment

[TERRA Operative]

he pulls out what's in the second picture.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?  The service manual for one of the most obscure pieces of equipment.  It looked like it
never was opened.  I could not, in good conscience, not give the Vidar a chance to be functional. 

That's worth scanning to PDF for the archives for sure.

[bob91343]

This is my EI3000 voltmeter.  Rated 0.01% on dc and 0.1% on ac, still works great.

[tggzzz]

Yea i have a soft spot for nixies... so fresh into the lab... a Solartron LM1619 volt meter and the nixies are not the only tubes in it

oh and 1KV on unshrouded banana sockets? i guess things was different back then!

I'll raise you dekatrons plus 200-500V output plus finger accessible plus school equipment... With the EHT switched on, touching the GM socket's centre conductor with a finger causes it to count.



No, you don't feel a shock since the output impedance is ~5Mohm

[Enigma-man]

Wow ! Dekatrons. My favourite next to Nixies.
I sure wish I could find a schematic for a low frequency counter because I have more than a dozen Dekatrons and have
no intention to make shitty Dekatron spinners out of therm. 

# bob91343... Very nice to see some rare pieces of equipment.

[Enigma-man]

Vidar 500 Voltmeter revisited.

I got the Vidar 500 fixed last night and here are two pix showing it measuring voltage compared to my Dana 5330
and frequency compared to the HP 5340.
The Vidar had several issues, but no collection of Germanium transistors, resistors and caps was going to defeat me.
It works and that was my goal.  The only one left to fix is the Systron Donner 1032 and it will be work again.

[tggzzz]

Back in February this year, my good buddy gave me a Weston Standard Cell.  Up until the mid 90's the Weston Cells were the worldwide voltage standard.
on the net.  A new Weston Cell was 1.01830 volts.  The cell is only supposed to be guaranteed accurate for a number of years but I have read some are still good after many decades.

There are two types of Weston standard cell: saturated and unsaturated, with different voltages and tempco and lifetimes.

Saturated cells are stable for decades (I have one from 1949), have a 40uV/C tempco, are fragile, so are only used in labs. Your image shows one.

Unsaturated cells have lower tempco, are more robust, have a shorter lifetime, and were used in portable equipment.

[bitseeker]

The Vidar lives!

[schmitt trigger]

My ultimate idiot box: Nixies, Dekatron, Neon lamps, and a Magic eye. All counting in random sequences.
All synchronized with beeps.

A real mind-relaxing apparatus, very effective for dealing with headaches caused by stubborn people.

[bitseeker]

Awesome. A video demo is requisite for this curiosity.

[schmitt trigger]

I would love to share a video, but EEVBLOG doesn’t allow uploading videos?

BTW; I have called this contraption “Der sinnlose Zähler”. The senseless counter. Although I ignore whether my German language skills are good enough and this name makes any sense.

Or perhaps “The ultimate idiot box”, again in German.
Perhaps some native German speakers may suggest a catchy name? That would be appreciated.

[bitseeker]

No problem. Video goes on YouTube. Link to video goes into EEVblog forum post.

[greytop]

I have just dug a Daystrom Schlumberger 1291 out, tried it 30+ years ago, functioned then. Must try it again

[mikeinkcmo]

I've scrolled through all the pages and haven't seen an HP-312 selective volt meter. 



I also have a 5245M counter that I've had for quite a while.

[Johnny10]

Now those are cool !

[scopeman]

I've scrolled through all the pages and haven't seen an HP-312 selective volt meter. 



I also have a 5245M counter that I've had for quite a while.

Wow I used to use a HP312 when I worked at Western Union in the late 70's before we replaced them with HP3586's.

Sam
W3OHM

[video99]

Hello

A while back you mentioned a Fluke 8375A mnultimeter.  I'm looking at one of these, there seems to be a power supply problem.  I'm sure there should be a regulated output of about 9V from Q6 (the one with the heatsink) but I'm only seeing about 0.9V from there.  I've checked pretty much every component on the PSU and replaced all bad ones but to no avail.  I don't suppose you have a schematic for the PSU do you?  I'm working blind and with the present crisis, finances are tight beyond belief so I can't really buy a manual for a unit which is more of a curiosity than a useful piece of test kit.  I would just like to get it to run to show off the display if I can.  At the m,oment the machine appears dead though the high voltage for the tubes is present.

Thanks for any help if you can.

All the best,

  Colin

colin@video99.co.uk
youtube.com/video99couk

[Cubdriver]

Colin, I *think* I have a manual for an 8375A lurking about somewhere here (I have an 8375A in my to-be-looked-at pile, and am fairly certain that I got a hard copy manual for it).  I'll try to find some time to dig for it in the next day or three, and offer what insight I can if it turns up.

-Pat

[Martian Tech]

16 pages and no Heathkit? 

[bob91343]

EI 3000

[Electro Fan]

Here is a HP 5327B displaying a 49,152,000 Hz signal from a Leo Bodnar GPSDO while taking a 10 MHz reference clock signal from a BG7TBL GPSDO.  When I first got the 5327B several years ago it was missing the 8th tube and an IC so when I found a source I figured I'd go for some spares.  The 5327B seems pretty accurate and it is just plain fun to look at.

[Johnny10]

You've got to stock up just in case.

[Electro Fan]

You've got to stock up just in case.

This is what I’m thinking. 

[Dave Wise]

My Fluke 8100B 12000-count bench DMM with the very interesting Recirculating Remainder ADC.  (Volts and ohms, no amps.)  It's hard to get a good picture of the display due to multiplexing.

[Dave Wise]

One of my HP 740B DC Voltage Standard/Differential Voltmeters.  On its side for troubleshooting.  The Nixie tubes display the knob positions, they don't dynamically change with input voltage.  So just an electronic version of the mechanical digit wheels on a Fluke differential voltmeter.

[Dave Wise]

My Monsanto model 2000 Digital Voltmeter.  DC Volts only.  Easy on the eyes 20000-count non-multiplexed display required many many RTL integrated circuits for counters and latches.  As far as I can tell, this is Monsanto's only DVM ever.  I never found any advertisements for it, just an oblique mention of "a digital voltmeter" in an article from Chemical Engineering News January 1966 edition... which I can't find anymore.  Gift from the late noted Tektronix collector Stan Griffiths.

It uses a single-slope converter with an electromechanical "Synchroverter" chopper.  Communication across Guard is two pulse transformers with interesting signal timing.  The automatic polarity switching is awkward and went through significant mods that appear to be from the factory, and it was still flawed - to measure a guarded negative voltage you had to manually connect GUARD to the IN terminal instead of the COMMON terminal.  I fixed that by changing the circuit yet again.  Other changes I made ended up inserting two microcontrollers to correct some timing glitches.  It's kind of a Frankenstein but it works.