Neon bulb logic elements link?

[Guy Sotomayor]

You might want to look at the following book:
	"1966 Applications of Neon Lamps and Gas Discharge Tubes."
	By Edward Bauman, Signalite inc

There's an online version of the book at:
	http://homepage.ntlworld.com/electricstuff/oldbooks.html

Chapter V covers "neon memory switches".  Pretty cool stuff.  I
especially liked the bistable multivibrator (aka flip-flop) using 2 neon
lamps.

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 15:55 -0700, Tom Jennings wrote:
> On Wed, 25 May 2005, Eric Smith wrote:
> 
> > Tom wrote:
> >> I think your idea is generally right, but this detail seems wrong:
> >> when X goes from +7.5V to 0V, the entire line will see 105V,
> >> striking the entire line.
> >
> > Nope.
> 
> I stand corrected!
> 
> 
> > I wrote:
> >> Will neon bulbs have reduced lifetime if you run them on DC?
> >
> > Tom wrote:
> >> As far as I can tell from reading literature, basically the metal
> >> electrodes develop non-conducting surfaces (eg. oxidation) from
> >> impurities in and outgassing from the glass and metal.
> >
> > Chicago Miniature Lamp says that DC operating life is 60% of AC.
> > However, the lifetime specs given for "circuit element" lamps (as
> > opposed to "indicator") are for DC.
> 
> Ahh... the Nixie lit explicitly talks about element life. If one
> element is held lit for long term you get a limited life; if it
> varies as much as once a day life dramatially increases. I think
> for memory purposes we'd be safe...
> 
> I think the numbers were "short" life 10K hours, "long" 100K hours.
> 
> I bet it's also dependent on current.
> 
> app note here:
> 
> http://wps.com/archives/Burroughs/index.html
> 
> I think paper N102.
> 
> 
-- 

TTFN - Guy