The chuck finally turning!
I made an idler pulley tonight so I am able to finally try turning the chuck! […]
Another photos..
I have almost no time to spend on nixies recently (moving to new house, newborn twins..), so there are some photos of my previous work.. It is mostly [...]
Some progress
Altough I haven’t written any post recently, I am spending almost all my free time on the nixie tubes making (or better – trying to make :-) ). [...]
Helium leak detector running!
At the beginning – I would like to thank to Ron Soyland, I would not be able to get it work without his great help (hundreds of emails) [...]
Spectrometer unit
I am step by step disassembling all the helium leak detector I bought recently. There are several things to do.. cleaning the flanges, replacing the o-ring, checking the [...]
Stainless steel etching
I tried to etch a stainless steel today.. I used a mixture of hydrochloric acid (HCl), water and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The peroxide acts here as a catalysator, [...]
Helium leak detector (Alcatel ASM 51)
I accidentally skipped several levels in my research and bought a helium leak detector. It was located in France so I had to ask seller to arrange a [...]
Stainless steel foil finally arrived
I finnaly got a stainless steel foil (316 type) I orded a few months ago from US. I don't understand why such a primitive thing is impossible to [...]
Some tubes to scavenge..
I got some old non-working tubes to disassemble as Ron Soyland does. There are some nice pieces of material that are I could hardly find else as a [...]
Induction heater
I will try to make an induction heater from common induction cooker. Ron Soyland have already warned me that it will perhaps be impossible due to too low [...]
Butt welding (lead-in-wires)
I used to spot weld wires for electrodes by placing them across and weld. That works but doesn’t look well and I think it makes strain in the [...]
custom stems: first attempt
The most difficult part of the tube will be definitely stems. More than 10 pins must go through, all vacuum tight of course, on small area. I have [...]
Sealed argon tubes
I spent last two weeks by making completely standalone argon tubes. I wanted to learn how to make a vacuum-tight feedthroughs and try to tip off the tube [...]
Glassworking lathe, part II
I was struggling with a glassworking lathe recently.. All went well, until I tried to start the motor ;-) My original shaft (inside the small bearings) connected to [...]
HV Power supply
This PSU was made according to Lindsay’s PSU here: 40-400V, 20W power supply. I would like to thank for the writing of that great howto. […]
Glass working lathe
One of the most important tools for working with glass will be glassworking lathe. I decided to build one by myself, commercial solutions are too expensive or aren’t [...]
High-vacuum stopckocks
After some unsuccessful experiments with common (non-vacuum) stopckocs, valves, etc., I finally decided to use stopcocks designated for high vacuum. I found some on eBay for $25/piece. I [...]
Argon arrived
I've finally got an argon bottle, 1.3m³ of pure argon (99.996%) pressed in 8l bottle. It is pretty heavy ;-) The argon was chosen because it is has [...]
Electronics for pirani gauge
I was working on electronic part of pirani gauge a few weeks, so there were no new posts.. I moved the system from breadboard to the plastic box, [...]
First experiments with cathode glow!
I have successfully done my first experiments with vacuum and gas discharge.. It was quite simple, the vacuum pump is much powerful I expected.. I work only with [...]