Displaying tubes in the home ??

[Easto]

Probably like most of you I'm starting to aquire a bunch of tubes. Some work good, some not so good. Rather than throw away the bad tubes I was thinking of displaying them on the wall or something like that.

Any ideas on how to go about this? Any "pre-made' solutions?

[Ethan]

Easto,
Try a shelf.

Ethan

[jetson]

ya know what would be cool, have a long wooden display case enclosed in glass. then wire up all the tube heaters. in low light conditions it would be as cool as a lava lamp. 2 or 3 802`s it could also be a nice space heater!

[daschnoz]

Build yourself a small box; enough to hold s few sockets and a 6V transformer.

-hook up the heaters

I don't know how much of a difference this will make with a B+ of 6V, but it may be worth a try
-ground the cathodes and grids
-rectify the 6V and connect to the plates through a 47k resistor <--just a number I pulled out of my butt

You may get some orange glow on the plates, or some of that blue glow action around the envelope.

You could also hook up some orange or red LED's under the sockets.

[cockaroacha]

How about a wall hanging, tolexed sculpture of a face, with Octals standing up like a crewcut, & maybe for the eyes. 12A_7s for teeth. And of course all of the filaments wired up so they'll glow. Hmmmm, I might have to do that myself. Art is soooo much fun.

Okay, time to lay off the coffee.

[novemberrain]

Story hour:

When I was a kid we lived just down the road from Bevans, New Jersey. Try and look it up on a map, it ain't there any more! Long story... but to make a long story short, this was the height of the hippy era. There was a guy living there who did electronics sculpture, these were early efforts at miniaturization. Some of his stuff functioned, some of it just looked cool as ****! He did stuff like germanium transistors and Japanese beetles encased in Lucite for jewelry, that sort of thing. The most memorable thing he did was to do a "barber's pole" of vacuum tubes up a telephone pole, they went up the pole about to the crossbar for the wires. He had a little circuit mounted on the pole, sealed under an upside-down fish bowl and powered by a photocell, when the sun came out it would sequence random tunes.

That might have a lot to do with me gettin' into electronics.

[novemberrain]

Probably like most of you I'm starting to aquire a bunch of tubes. Some work good, some not so good. Rather than throw away the bad tubes I was thinking of displaying them on the wall or something like that.

Plan "B":

Build a really large amp, something like a super Egnater. The point of the exercise is to use ALL the tubes you have in your posession at the moment.

[stu]

Safety would be a big concern, but my vote would be to try to make a string of Christmas tree lights.

[novemberrain]

Safety would be a big concern, but my vote would be to try to make a string of Christmas tree lights.

Nah. If they can make cell towers look like big ugly artificial Christmas trees you should be able to string old tubes on 'em without a problem!

[Andrew4566]

I have 4 nixie tubes I think could be cool to display, but I don't know much about them. Anyone know how their ciruits work.

-Andy

[markd]

Safety would be a big concern, but my vote would be to try to make a string of Christmas tree lights.

Twenty tube bases(octal or miniature) with the heaters wired in series, then the bases sealed in epoxy for safety, would give you appox. 120v. Plug that into the wall and plug in 20 tubes and you have a string of glowing tubes on your tree. While it would no doubt burn your house down, it would look cool doing it. ha!
Maybe if they were hung carefully in the open air it would be acceptable. Those filaments get good and hot though.

[NitroLiq]

Another good use for a spice rack...

[jersey_aaron]

Here's an idea for your nixie tubes:



"From Jouhn Carpenter (USA) : I built it to look like candles using Russian IN-14 tubes. I used Honda PCV valve grommets to hold tubes in place. It flashes Hours, then Minutes, and then pauses using chip by Ivan Siy"

[jetson]

JA;
that is SO COOL!. i have a few of those tubes but suspect they need some kind of chip to run them. any idea where one would go to get a schem?

[jersey_aaron]

Try here:
http://www.nixieclocks.de/english/nixie ... /index.php