[sdiy] Visible Tube Organ

[Scott Gravenhorst]

Interesting.

I'll take a wild crack at it --

What I will describe depends very much on the frequency at which
it is supposed to operate and that would determine the value of
the Cs and Rs.  The single stage looks suspiciously like a
relaxation oscillator, but with two series neon bulbs instead of
the usual one.  This would have the effect of doubling the
voltage at which bulbs would turn on and discharge the two
series caps to the right of the bulb chain.  The bottom bulb is
coupled to the input, this means that when the previous stage
discharges, it gets a kick to attempt to push it over it's flash
threshhold voltage.  But if the R feeding the cap/bulb network
is set to an RC time constant of slightly more time than twice
input frequency, the bottom bulb will not turn on due to
insufficient voltage across it's terminals.  On the next input
cycle, however, the series caps across the bulbs will now be
charged to a value much closer to the flash voltage of both
bulbs and the kick from the input is now enough to put it over
the edge, they both conduct, discharge the caps and deliver a
pulse to the next stage.  Everything depends very much on the Rs
and Cs proper values.


Ok, EEs, tear me apart, but I bet I'm pretty close.


Toby Paddock <tpaddock at seanet.com> wrote:
>http://www.kitphoenixx.freeserve.co.uk/project_2.htm
>Neon Gas Tube Frequency Dividers Project
>
>I can't quite see what it's doing. I can see how 
>you could have a neon relaxation oscillator 
>with an additional charge *thump* from another 
>oscillator. If the period of the neon osc is 
>longer, then it is likely to trigger during one 
>of the *thumps*. Kind of a soft sync. And that 
>would be a division of the *thumping oscillator*.
>
>One of the things I want to try, because 
>it's time for a ...
>
>NEON REVIVAL
>
>Later,
>Toby
>
>Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
>> "neon dividers" ?  Is this a neon bulb flipflop that does the
>> divide by two thing ?  I'd _love_ to see a schematic of that
>> part!
>> 
>> Toby Paddock <tpaddock at seanet.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >Assuming that subject line makes it past 
>> >the spam filters...
>> >
>> >Did someone post about someone who took the 
>> >tone generator from an organ and put it in 
>> >display box? It would have been a year or so ago.
>> >
>> >After the interesting organ talk lately, I took 
>> >a look inside my old Lowery LSL tube organ. 
>> >The neon dividers light up when you play it. 
>> >Cool. I was thinking that in an alternate 
>> >universe - where I had much more time, energy, 
>> >focus, brains, and I could actually play 
>> >keyboard - I would put the hang the tone chassis 
>> >in a plexiglass box seperate from the keyboards.
>> >
>> >Then later that started sounding familiar, like I 
>> >had heard that somewhere. Like probably here.
>> >
>> >?
>> >
>> >Later,
>> >Toby
>> >Paddock
>> >
>> 
>
>

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-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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