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I made some minor changes is the last nixie tube design and decided to get it etched from brass. It would be better to have it made from stainless steel, but the company I use for etching experience some problems with photo resist, so I decided to use a brass, only for this test. Brass is nice material, it is unfortunately impossible to use it in vacuum tubes. It relieves a zinc into vacuum during a bake out phase, the zinc then condensates on the colder glass envelope.. It is also too soft and numbers made from brass would sputter heavily.
This assembly should be fully working, the numbers are insulated by ceramic beads and the wire inside them is insulated by thin glass tube. There are no shorts. I plan to put it into vacuum chamber to test its behaviour, glow evenness, brightness, breakdown voltage and so..
The mica sheets were cut by scissors, I plan to make a circular cutting knife and use a press to produce nice and even circle..
