2012-12-15 Heavy Mineral Deposits
Posted by AnubisTTP

In Victorian steampunk times, lightbulbs were seen as a legitimate form of entertainment. We have recently acquired an early Crookes mineral tube which exists only to fulfill this need. The tube contains a cubical block of calcite, which glows red under the influence of high voltage in a vacuum due to its phosphorescent properties. In our not too distant past, electricity was still considered a form of magic. We have also added a few other new items, including a J.H. Bunnel Telegraph Sounder in the Communication Equipment section, an unusual surface mount green Soviet LED display in the Solid State Displays section, and an assortment of General Electric 2N43 transistors to the Discrete Semiconductors section.

2012-10-07 The Polish Ambassador
Posted by AnubisTTP

How does one control an electric street lamp automatically in a time before semiconductors? If you are the City of New York, you decide to install a phalanx of General Electric 3T18SOL2 Astronomic Time Switches on every street. We have recently added one of these mechanically intensive devices to the Clocks, Timers & Counters section, and it is worth looking at a reminder of how difficult electronics used to be before Shockley's transistor invasion. Other new items added to the site in recent history include a Reflector P789 three color 'Jumbotron'-style display to the Vacuum Fluorescent Displays section, a Raytheon 2K33 reflex klystron to the Microwave Amplifier & Oscillator Tubes section, and a quite hilarious big bubble Litronix display to the Solid State Displays section. In other news, a visitor to our site, Zygmunt Flisak, has identified the unidentified 'Eastern Bloc' green metal can LED we added to the Solid State Indicators section several months ago. It is a CEMI CQYP 32A, and has the distinction of being the first Polish-made electronic component added to the website. We very much doubt that it will be the last.

2012-08-11 Prince Albert in a Can
Posted by AnubisTTP

Once again, we have added a number of new items to the Electronics Museum: * Solid State Displays: A very rare military variant of the 2416, the MDL2416, which is packaged in a hermetic metal can enclosure. * Clocks, Timers & Counters: A Sargent & Greenleaf Type L time lock movement, worthy of appearing in a steampunk fantasy. * Solid State Indicators: The elusive Fairchild FLV101, a failed attempt by Fairchild to convert it's FLV100 fiber optic transmitter into a useful LED indicator device. * Variable Indicator Tubes: A Tune A Lite 'tuneon' style linear neon tuning indicator, in an advanced state of cathode-disintegrating torment.

2012-06-16 Dot Communist
Posted by AnubisTTP

We have added a few new items to the Electronics Museum, including an unusual device, the Soviet IV-29 dot indicator. Never before has the humble lamp been lavished with such over-engineering; the IV-29 is an entire hot cathode VFD tube built to display a single round dot. Large numbers of IV-29s would be soldered into matrices and segments, allowing characters and numbers to be displayed in pixel-assembled form. We have added several items from Hamvention to the site as well, including an EMI 9826B photomultiplier to the Detection Tubes section and a Central Electric CVS-1 high vacuum switch to the Spark, Trigger, and Passive Tubes section. Our somewhat anemic Aerospace Components section has also received a new item, a Northrop 09641001 voice recorder magazine. This reel-to-reel recorder takes the tape deck to new heights of military over-engineering.

2012-04-29 Pork Chops
Posted by AnubisTTP

Dayton Hamvention is once again rapidly approaching, and we will again be occupying flea market booth numbers FE3038, FE3039 and FE3040. We will have our full online inventory available, including kit versions of all our Yilane products, as well as thousands of heavy bulky electronic and industrial items designed to entice equal portions of lust and chiropractic care. If you are one of those unfortunate souls that has never experienced Hamvention, feel free to check out this 57-minute long video of Hamvention 2011, filmed by our motley crew of electronics enthusiasts. Could there possibly be a better place to ride out the 2012 global apocalypse? In non-Hamvention news, we have also added a few new items to the Electronics Museum between the busy work of Hamvention preparation; a mysterious green Eastern Bloc LED to the Solid State Indicators section, and a hilarious Wamco KW104S-DP filamentary decimal point indicator to the Filament Displays section.

2012-04-06 Going Geissler
Posted by AnubisTTP

We have recently added another obscure item to the site, the Soviet IEL-0-VI electroluminescent display. These unusual devices, which have recently flooded the Ebay surplus market after years of absence, work on the same principle as the Chinese electroluminescent wire that has choked the blogosphere ever since the new Tron movie was released. In absence of an appropriate section in which to insert such an unusual device, we have added the entry for the IEL-0-VI to the Vacuum Fluorescent Displays section. Emails pointing out the poor reasons for this choice will be cheerfully ignored. We have also added a vintage spiral Geissler tube to the Gas Discharge Tubes section. A Geissler tube is a functionally useless decorative cold cathode lamp, and were mass produced from the 1880's onward; a time when staring at a decorative lamp was considered a legitimate form of entertainment. Other recent additions include an IEE Aurora FFD12 minitron display to the Filament Displays section, and an unknown Monsanto straight-pin LED to the Solid State Indicators section.

2012-02-28 High School Physics Musical
Posted by AnubisTTP

We have taken a trip off the beaten path to add an article to the Electronics Museum covering an esoteric piece of philosophical equipment, a De La Rive Apparatus. This formidable device combines a low pressure electron tube with an external magnetic coil to demonstrate the effect of magnetic fields upon an electron stream, typically to an audience of stiff-collared Victorians or bored high school physics students. It is a difficult to obtain device, and we are glad to finally add one to our Gas Discharge Tubes section. We have also acquired some new items of a more traditional fare, including a Phillips Z550 neon filled pixie tube and a Philco 1N82 point contact diode. A new entry has also been added to the Glow Transfer Counting Tubes page to cover rare transitional forms of the GC10B, which are filled with helium instead of the neon gas the GC10B typically contains.

2012-01-28 Is That Your Edge?
Posted by AnubisTTP

We recently obtained a rather unusual device from Brian Stuckey, operator of the TubeclockDB Nixie clock database: a General Radio IND-1803 Numerik Indicator. Manufactured by a company not known for their display division, the IND-1803 is an edge lit display with a number of rather unique properties. Other new additions to the website include a Burroughs B9012 pixie tube in the Gas Discharge Displays section and an unusual surface mount LED display in the Solid State Displays section. We have also veered a bit away from the world of tubes and electronics to make an entry for a mechanical device; an Eaton two movement time lock, a traditional device from a rather insular class of products. Despite a lack of any electronics, this device is a forest of moving parts and can be found in our Clocks Timers & Counters section.

2011-12-08 Clocking In with the ITS1A Display
Posted by AnubisTTP

We have added a new project build log to the Articles page, covering the construction of a rather unusual timepiece which makes use of a Melz ITS1A display. These neon filled devices use an array of thyratrons to display seven-segment numbers in green phosphor, and can be hooked directly up to a TTL microcontroller with no intermediate hardware despite the high voltages present in the tube. This is likely the only clock using ITS1A tubes so far made outside the Russian Federation... at least we could not find any other projects on the Internet using one of these tubes. Head on over to the project article page to jump down the rabbit hole; it is a very deep rabbit hole indeed.

2011-11-06 Pixel Pushers
Posted by AnubisTTP

We have made some recent additions to the Electronics Museum, including an unusual Soviet matrix display, the ILV2-5/7M2. This is an obscure bitmapped VFD tube that can display a 5x7 alphanumeric character in three different colors; red, green; or blue. Other new additions include a National NL5971 alphanumeric Nixie tube and the Gazotron MTX-90, a Soviet thyratron designed for indicator use, both of which can be found in the Gas Discharge Displays section, as well as a rare Toyo 6ME5 subminiture tuning eye that can be found in the Variable Indicators section. In unrelated news, our article on the construction of a Tiny Tetris device utilizing a small camcorder viewfinder CRT was recently picked up by the Hackaday electronics blog. If you missed this project when it first appeared several years ago, it can be found in the Articles section.

2011-09-13 On The Edge
Posted by AnubisTTP

Once again, we have added a number of new items to the Electronics Museum: * Incandescent Displays: An unusual NLS edge lit display, which indicates numbers using lighted sheets of glass. * Beam Switching Tubes: Two new uncharacterized devices, the BX-1003 and BX2013 "Beam-X" beam switching tubes. * Filament Displays: Two unusual symbol filament displays, the Wamco KW-104EW and KW-104NS. * Solid State Indicators: The Soviet-made AL102A a red point source LED in a metal can package.

2011-07-23 Ginormous
Posted by AnubisTTP

Thanks to a fortuitous donation from Terry Kennedy, a fellow collector, we are lucky to be able to add an uncommon Russian display tube to the Electronics Museum, a massive ILC1-1/7 seven-segment display. This VFD, which has a digit height of over 80mm, is of such huge proportions that it causes lesser nixies and VFD displays in its midst to hang their heads in shame and question their own self-worth. Improbably huge Russian displays were not the only device to be added to the Electronics Museum in recent weeks. We have also added another not-oft-utilized Russian device, an IN-28 neon single dot indicator, to the Gas Discharge Displays section. In addition we have added several other new items, including an FCCD 143D linear CCD to the Monolithic Integrated Circuits section and a Soviet-made A106 shaped cathode 'dekatron' tube to the Glow Transfer Counting Tubes section.

2011-06-14 An Alien Construct
Posted by AnubisTTP

Imagine if you will, a strange alien world where Burroughs made dekatrons. What might they look like? They might look something like the Burroughs BG08220-K, a glow transfer tube of such bizarre construction that it might as well have fallen from the sky. The BG08220-K is a base-24 counter, it has four guides, and in the land of Burroughs, all glow transfer counting tubes are square. Not all of the new items added this week come from the land of mystery. We have also added entries for several tuning eyes, the DM70 and 6E5, to the Variable Indicators section. Be sure to check out the videos on our Videos page to see these tubes in action.

2011-05-10 A Wonderful Magical Animal
Posted by AnubisTTP

It's that time of year again; Dayton Hamvention 2011 is rapidly approaching, and we will once again be occupying flea market booth numbers FE3038, FE3039 and FE3040. We will have our full online inventory available, including kit versions of our full range of Yilane products, as well as a vast sea of bulky electonics objects best left to the imagination. Those unfortunate souls who have never attended Dayton Hamvention can experience equal portions of envy and lust by viewing our Hamvention videos of years past. Despite the pressures of Hanvention preparation, we have managed to add a few new devices to the electronics museum in the past week, including a rather rare dekatron, the Sylvania CT-783, to the Glow Transfer Counting Tubes section. We have also added a similarly uncommon display, the General Electric SSL-140, to the Solid State Displays section.

2011-04-19 An Enigma, Wrapped in a Mystery, Wrapped in a Ceramic Flat-Pack
Posted by AnubisTTP

With the vast amounts of electronic components we handle on a weekly basis, it is rare that we come across a part that we can not identify. It does happen on occasion however, and it is an unusual part indeed that is resistant to the normal avenues of identification. We have collected some of the most unusual of these items into a new article; Mysterious Components. If you can identify any of these strange parts, feel free to contact us with the solutions to some of these mystery devices.

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