AW: [sdiy] helping a friend

[Ullrich Peter]

>vacuum flourescent displays huh?,  thanks for that guys.  now do these need 
>to warm up like tubes do, and if they are old, will it/can it take longer?
>or are these basically indestructible through normal use?

The problem with these displays is that they need a heating in the display. When you 
can have a closer look at the display you may see about 4 thin wires inside the tube that
goes from one side to the other. If everything is working fine they sometimes glow quite dark.

Maybe the voltage for the heating is missing on some startup.
This voltage is normally an AC-voltage (24V, 48V).
Maybe this volatge will be generated with an little oscillator and a transformer - then
maybe the oscillator has starting problems! Just an idea...

Ciao
Peter

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                   Ing. Peter Ullrich         mailto:ullrich at kapsch.net
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   .oooO           Hardware & Software Developer /  Electronic Musician
   (   )   Oooo.   KAPSCH AG / ECCN Control Systems    Vienna / Austria
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