The B5094 Nixie was tickling me: why only two symbols light up? Why
others don't? I asked around and the hint was to increase the voltage
supply (as well as the current limiting resistor).
Worth
a try. My PSU module reaches 186 V: not enough to light up other
symbols. Then I added in series a 12 V battery pack for a total of 198 V
and ... all 3+3 symbols said "Hello!".
The
series resistor was increased to 47k that is probably still too low. I
need to measure the working current of that specific Nixie and make sure I do not exceed the
3.5 mA stated in the datasheet.
The
need for an increased voltage is a sign that the tube is "tired". The
4th B5092 doesn't fire with 198 V. I may try to go higher but that's not
too easy to achieve with batteries, or keep it as a souvenir.
