Inside a neon tube test antenna - and electronic jammer? (with schematic)

This is actually a fairly retro device as reflected in the circuitry. Its original purpose was to test neon signs in situ to find faulty tubes. In a traditional neon sign there can be several sections of tubing in series on a transformer, and if one loses vacuum internally it effectively goes open circuit.
This unit is basically a high frequency and high voltage transmitter. When you touch the antenna to the side or end of a tube it will cause it to glow if it is still operational.
They were also sold in electrical retailers for testing fluorescent lamps, but weren't really suited to that task as they do not show the state of the electrodes, and only give an indication if the tube has a seal failure, which is rare.
The circuitry is interesting though, as it has strong similarities to a device called a jammer that was used on some early electronic equipment. By inducing voltage in circuitry or wiring remotely it can cause unexpected results, and in the past similar devices were used to defraud petrol pumps and gaming equipment by interfering with their operation.
Modern cash equipment has extra protection to detect things like this to allow them to shut down and trigger an alarm or in earlier equipment just force a reset.
An interesting recent example of the electrical interference was when a sign installer was driving his truck to a job and his helper was playing with the device. The helper touched the antenna to the truck door and the engine management system cut out forcing the driver to make an unplanned stop on a layby. When they turned the ignition off and on again it resumed normal operation.
These devices have other uses, but their primary use is in the neon sign industry.
Be aware that these units can damage adjacent electronics without contact. Use with care.
Here's a typical search link:-
www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...
Target price is less than $20 shipped.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of KZbin's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.

[@ZeedijkMike]

Nearly got nostalgic tears in my eyes when I saw the NE555. Such simplicity and still endless uses.

[@benbaselet2026]

Quite a few newish gear still has them. I bet designers like them for the nostalgia and of course they must be dirt cheap too :)

[@markiangooley]

The only chip I had anywhere near as much fun with as the 555 as a boy was the LM 3909... now unfortunately unavailable. Needs to be revived.

[@tbelding]

@Mai Mariarti - Should fit in a standard envelope to be mailed to Clive :)

[@RicoElectrico]

@@markiangooley You can abuse ICL7660 and clones to do a LED flasher as well.

[@tbelding]

@Mai Mariarti - Canada Post - Yes, I know how expensive they are, at least, when they're not on strike. AliExpress isn't going to be that cheap for much longer (if they are now at all.) It's that whole 'developing nation' deal for the cost of shipping. I'd also personally rather buy them from TI, if at all possible.

[@ElementalMaker]

I love me anything 555! That chip was the centerpiece of the very basic waveform generator I built back in my college days.

[@devicemodder]

I have one inside my homebuilt bench supply. it's used to latch/unlatch a relay on the output terminals so i can adjust the voltage with something connected and don't end up frying the device.

[@stdorn]

my goto's 555, 741, 386

[@tonythemadbrit9479]

I built disco type light flashers when I was about 14 in the 70s using 555s. I also built a copy of the Rolf Harris (pedo) stylophone mini organ. Very easy chip to work with. Fun times!

[@ntsecrets]

Look up “portable dog killer”

[@ntsecrets]

Actually the modern portable dog killer doesn’t use a 555 but the original did.

[@bitrot42]

Wow, takes me back to the days of CB radio... Some crafty folks would wrap one lead of a neon bulb around the tip of the antenna, and it would light up when transmitting. I guess there were fewer options for demonstrating extreme nerdiness back then.

[@Palmit_]

"stuff pliers in, open them up.. oww oww ow.. .. . . this is working. . .. it's open!" worst Lube advert ever lol

[@richardhalliday159]

Nearly 50 years old ! never thought in a million years ( or 48 years ) that long after my college days we would be still discussing its modern day application when I’m drawing my old age pension - incredible, or should that be unbelievable !

[@bearicade5582]

More orders for Neon tester were placed this day,Than on any day EVER.

[@nogravitas7585]

*The FCC would like to know your location*

[@bearicade5582]

@@nogravitas7585 And the location of EVERYONE who orders one.

[@tbelding]

@@nogravitas7585 - Don't worry, they'll be able to figure it out pretty quickly.

[@harriehausenman8623]

@@tbelding By just scanning the local RF neighbourhood.

[@SlyerFox666]

🤣

[@jindivik321]

i love it when you read the terrible broken English instructions with complete sincerity :D

[@karldavies2954]

Has me in stitches every time 😂😂

[@harriehausenman8623]

highly enjoyable

[@janami-dharmam]

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.”

[@T2D.SteveArcs]

Lol I see any instructions with a Chinese product and my first thought is bonus and that immediately fades to a feeling of of a bad odds gamble ....

[@rysacroft]

The instructions for my freezer told me that I could get "freezer bum". It's just a typo but for the rest of my life I'll try to avoid that scenario :)

[@robinkeys8163]

Started my career as an electrician in an electric sign plant and we had at the time three full time tube benders. I have a late 90's model tube tester exactly like the one you took to bits. Another interesting aside, when troubleshooting a large array of tubes in a multi-tube sign, you can touch the glass and the tubes will "vibrate" with a slight corona of static. The tubes that have failed will be "cold", and won't have a static field around them, thus leading you to the problem tube you need to have remade. I'm not certain that this would work with the more modern GFCI/AFCI protected neon transformers, but it was sure fire simple to troubleshoot the older unprotected ones. I left the sign trade for apprenticeship in a traditional electrical shop before the use of the protected transformers became the norm, so I don't have any real experience with them.

[@bigclivedotcom]

With the modern electronic transformers, touching the tube would probably make it light up and pull an arc to your hand. They are sometimes quite troublesome.

[@davelowets]

I don't like the new electronic ballasts. They are awfully hard to abuse, and make into cool things such as Tesla coils. Whenever I find an abandoned old broken neon sign, I cut the transformer off and save it. 👌 One can never have enough of these these things.

[@nutsnproud6932]

Thanks for the video Clive. I'm a radio ham. I once turned up the power to the legal maximum (400 watts on Short wave). The fluorescent tunes and neons used to light up around the house.

[@b3j8]

Still have a dog-eared copy of a book on various 555 circuits i bought while in college. Loved that chip! Talk about a real workhorse!

[@Petertronic]

@b3j8 was it written by R. A. Penfold? I had a ton of his books ;)

[@Fifury161]

@@Petertronic I have a lot of his books! I've moved on to ESP8266 now, but I bought a reel of surface mount 555 & 4017s to have a bit of retro fun!

[@DavidFrankland]

@@Petertronic That's the one I was thinking of. Yellow cover. Probably sitting in a box here somewhere.

[@KJohansson]

Is it the "555 Cookbook"? Classic!

[@Fifury161]

@@KJohansson Indeed - he wrote about 170 books and retired in 2017. I had a lot of his books (about 100 of them) and they got water damaged ;-( Difficult to replace these days as the earlier ones are out of print now

[@travelbugse2829]

It warmed the cockles of my heart. For the first time in what seems an aeon, I actually UNDERSTOOD the schematic of a Big Clive tear-down and recognised a component at the start. Dear God, I am old...

[@jmhaddon]

Loving Ralfy's big button, Thanks for turning me on to his channel.

[@DasIllu]

It's a cattle prod for radio amateurs. You press the button, ham goes nuts :D

[@DJPhilTBCollins]

Sadly it would be just one voice in a chorus of knockoff wall warts, phone chargers, and poorly designed CFL/LED supplies. However there's always the magnetic loop antenna!

[@Anvilshock]

Hahahaha, good one!

[@sadiqmohamed681]

Oh my! 50 years of 555s! That really does make me feel old. Back in the mid-70s, I was sharing a house with some other engineering types (one was working for what was then the Post Office R&D on System-X! Anyone else know what that was?), and all being Star Trek fans decided we needed a Red Alert siren for our door bell. So I made one using 2 555s. It caused much hilarity for those in the know, and consternation for the rest. Glad to see the chip is still going strong. On Hackaday you still get the "but you could have done it a 555" about something using an Arduino or ESP32! A fascinating bit of retro stuff, Clive.

[@kingsman428]

System X, still in use today, used by Telco companies on Nokia based PDH networks.

[@sadiqmohamed681]

@@kingsman428 Fascinating. I knew that it was still around in the UK 15 years ago, as my local exchange in SW London had just been changed over to the latest version and the old building was being emptied. Every generation the equipment gets smaller.

[@kingsman428]

@@sadiqmohamed681 *SW London* I'm just down the road from there _Brighton_ *Local exchange* Sounds like you're talking about BTs topology *Equipment gets smaller* Well, to put that into perspective, our system X switch consumes a small warehouse full of racks of PDH cards, wirewraps, PSUs and switching gear, its IP based replacement solution fits inside a box small enough that an Amazon delivery driver could carry it to your door. Whilst System X is being *sun-setted* it will be around for a few more years yet which is testament to how robust it actually is. 😁

[@dumandugu6890]

According with your reverse engineered schematic and with the help of an online NE555 frequency calculator, it seems that the circuit vibrates at 62.468kHz with a 51.43% duty cycle. Nice teardown, thanks for sharing!

[@guyteigh3375]

Thank you. I did wonder what sort of frequency it was running at and gating at.

[@ant060495]

Hi Clive, just on the topic of the 555 theyre still widely used in schools in tech classes in the UK, we used them constantly along with programmable PIC chips in GCSE and A-level classes. There were whole GCSE modules on 555 timer chips. Theyre still alive and kicking

[@donaldasayers]

I used them too in teaching electronics. I nearly got a stamp made so I didn't have to draw an 8 pin dip package. I can still draw the standard 555 circuits in my sleep. God it was boring, I wanted to teach metalwork and engineering and always ended up teaching fecking electronics. But the making has gone now from "design technology" it's only 10% of the final mark, the rest is exams. I retired.

[@throttlebottle5906]

we used to put the neon with dropping resistors on the end of CB antennas, they'd light anywhere from low orange to purple at higher powers and change intensity as you modulated ( AM/SSB)

[@tncorgi92]

That's genius, my dad had HAM and CB equipment, wish I'd thought to do that!

[@joeboyko2138]

I had a similar device for sign repair troubleshooting. It came in handy for fueling station canopy logos which utilized neon back in the day. Also metal halide, hp sodium...ect. For obvious reasons, these testers can not be UL approved. Thank you enjoyed your video, like always. Ohh...glad you don't have a pacemaker...

[@truckerallikatuk]

Your arithmetic is correct. I'm almost the same age as the 555 timer chip. I feel blesed.

[@superdigital.]

They are definitely nice to have if the suspected circuit has no obvious breaks, however it will not tell you if the electrode is going bad on the tube so it's use is pretty limited. Thank you for all of the videos you make Clive.

[@creativejamieplays7185]

Love the Chinglish instructions.

[@rysacroft]

@@ts757arse That's really funny! LOL

[@shinyshadow]

Just done a simulation of the schematic and it turns out the 555 is clapping away at 35Khz, Just saying.

[@shinyshadow]

@@f1acf1ac Thats the difference between simulation and reality..

[@luism.raposo5138]

Back in 1992 I use to make those tubes for, I.L.C Technology in Sunnyvale, California. So much fun. Thank you

[@stevejagger8602]

The 555 timer is one of the wonders of the analogue electronic world. I still use them - I am that old!

[@Electronzap]

That's a really cool neon tester! Looks like it is high voltage, but it also limits current so that you can't get violently shocked.

[@davelowets]

Ah, finally! A pure analog circuit... Now you're speaking my language. I miss the days of analysing and repairing analog electronics. It's maybe why I love creating, playing around with, and repairing Hi-Fi power amplifiers of both vacuum tubes and transistors today still. 🤷🏻

[@Zadster]

One of the first electronic things I ever made and sold were CB radio "eyeball badges". Basically badges with your CB "handle" (callsign) on, and 2 eyes. I drilled the eyes out and replaced them with LEDs, made them flash initially with a 2 transistor astable, then later on a 555. Not bad for an 11 year old. It didn't make me rich but it subsidised my electronics habit for a few months!

[@ArtemisKitty]

Wow. This takes me back so much! The 555 was the first timer chip I worked with back in the 80s! So simple to do SO much with, haha. (I started a bit early on LEDs and building my own toys/projects, haha.) And the 2N2222 transistors too, I’ve used SO MANY of both of those.

[@davelowets]

Yep. The 555 and 556 is a jelly bean part that had, and still does, have an importance in modern electronics.

[@CheapCheerful]

Clive, you're one of the few things which actually makes me LOL. You're a classic :)

[@biggothkitty]

Is anyone else NOT surprised that Clive has a tool for this?

[@tranzco1173]

Is anyone not surprised that he hasn't electrocuted himself for us, "just for a test"? He is a human FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER.

[@CookingWithCows]

@@tranzco1173 but he did.

[@AngDavies]

he has (had?) another one, but that one was powered by the mains and designed for sex stuf, this one seems rather mundane by comparison XD. Old old video - youtube search Big clive violet wand.

[@martingilvray06]

Having spent years in the neon sign maintenance this little tool was a god send especially 9000 plus neons

[@godmonkeyjr]

When you said something about it looking like a circuit from an 80's magazine I am almost positive I built this circuit or something extremely similar from a magazine article back in the late 80's. It might even have been the first time I used a 555 for anything!

[@richardmslater]

Brings back memorys when I did electronics as a hobby great fun.

[@TheElectronicDilettante]

It looks similar to a DC -CDI ignition system schematic for a single cylinder motorcycle engine. Thanks for all the cool videoes.

[@keithcitizen4855]

very interesting well explained , top marks for finding this device to show

[@Robvdh87]

I bet they didn't think you would have sorted those neons out in about 5 seconds. Neither did I actually 😂 great stuff

[@just_noXi]

Awesome, I thought "that's it!" when the switcharoo happened

[@Starphot]

My first oscillator was the neon bulb/ capacitor connected to a series resistor "do nut'in" to 90 VDC. The second was an astable multivibrator made from germanium transistors, both in 1972. The third was two astable multivibrators made from silicon transistors I put in a model rocket with a CB channel 14 transmitter doing the Sputnik thing in 1973. The 555 came a little later in 1973. The 555 is in my drive controller to my 10" telescope mount I still use and take pictures with. All except the first oscillator I still have.

[@neville3151]

You can use it to test neon bulbs, cook hot dogs and warm your coffee.

[@Thematt11]

I have one of these designed to test CFL's, it has an eight foot extendable probe on it like a car antennae. That means that helpfully you're at least 8 feet away whenever you touch it to the back of your mates neck to give him an awake check.

[@atkelar]

Tricksters underestimating Clive's magic wand... Film at 11! 🤣️

[@skysurferuk]

Always love BC trying to shock hissel'...! Thanks for posting.

[@deathcube2006]

Very nice circuit. Looks very much like the ones I used to make years ago

[@terabyte7683]

It's unfortunate that the neon sign industry isn't too popular now, there's something about genuine neon bulbs and tubes that no imitation product can really get right.

[@marcr1333]

A lot of cities ban them and LED is more efficient. And some say much brighter. Though I don’t think so myself when it comes to an equivalent.

[@terabyte7683]

@@marcr1333 they are much more efficient and they are brighter but I simply like neon for aspects that leds can't replicate

[@marcr1333]

Terabyte7 I had a few stores that got LED Rope around the roof and some with NEON. Neon definitely sticks out more and bit brighter for this specifically. But I definitely agree. They’re beautiful.

[@DerMarkus1982]

Hello, old friend! I wasn't expecting to see *you* in there, 555!

[@russellhltn1396]

The NE555 is sure versatile. In high school I designed and built an alarm of out of them. One for exit delay, one for entry delay, one to make a siren nose and one to sweep the tone on the siren.

[@supratub]

To keep kids quiet at parties I have found a plasma ball & a random selection of small flo tubes & neon indicators most valuable. :)

[@bansheemania1692]

What kind of Magic is This 🙌

[@kenaston4220]

Many years ago...me and a friend, happened on a mains powered neon driver transformer... it was 10Kv and a decent current! About the size of a car battery. Well, we just had to arrange a spark gap across it with one side connected to a long wire antenna.... THAT is what you call a jammer! the spark gap electrodes glowed red and gradually disintegrated...

[@Emc1683]

They also work good for testing fluorescent lamps in signs, or light fixtures.

[@AndrewGillard]

The "Violet Wand" devices are effective jammers, of sorts, too :) An ex-partner of mine has one that I believe came from a UK sex toy shop (Lovehoney, possibly), and it would blank the screen of my laptop if it was powered on any closer than about a foot. However it wasn't something I experimented with very much at all, as I didn't want to risk damaging my then-very-new, £1500 laptop!

[@TuxraGamer]

It was probably just triggering the "lid closed" sensor, which is literally a cheap piece of metal that gets shorted by a huge magnet somewhere in your laptop's display assembly, so its way to determine whether it's connected or not tends to be really rough.

[@Chris-___-]

Hall effect sensor picking up EMF is unlikely I think

[@ProfessorFartsalot]

@@TuxraGamer More likely the high frequency would interfere with the LCD driver coil and cause the signal microcontroller to crash.

[@TuxraGamer]

@@ProfessorFartsalot Eh, actually, sounds coherent. I was just guessing though.

[@SlyerFox666]

It's not just a violet wand ... It's an S&M Violet Wand 🤭

[@ralgith]

Clive, the 555 timers are still used a lot in Arduino (and other micro-controller) projects for hobbyists. It's a great reliable little chip.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Not bad for a 48 year old chip. It's doing better than its 53 year old brother the 741 op-amp.

[@ralgith]

@@bigclivedotcom Yessir, I'll agree with that! But, OpAmps are fun, and so useful for so many things. There are just so many better choices for OpAmps these days. I've only been into hobby electronics for about 5 years now, so I've never used a 741. Not even seen one.

[@bigclivedotcom]

@Matthayi Naalaaman Nothing can really beat the 555, which is still mass produced. But you can create similar timers or pulse generators with schmitt trigger logic chips.

[@mrnmrn1]

​@@ralgithYou might have used the 741 without noticing it. The RC4558 is a common opamp, an it is essentially a dual 741 without offset adjustment. There are a few other opamps which are very similar to the good old 741.

[@gregorythomas333]

Damn...haven't seen a circuit like this in ages...yes I'm an old fart :) A lot of the old-school electronics were functional but could be used for nefarious purposes as well.

[@MisterTalkingMachine]

I had to build multivibrators and 555 circuits in college, that was in 2018 I think. From my experience the 555 is not as ubiquitous now as it might have been at some point, or some people make it out to be, but it still shows up every so often when taking stuff apart. One time I was walking by the beach and I saw a small piece of circuit board on the ground, about the size of a coin, the components left on that piece were a 555 and a resistor I think.

[@pinterelectric]

Do I remember putting a neon on the tip of a cb 102 inch whip and it would light when you transmit?

[@Cammi_Rosalie]

I wonder how that would work atop my Antron-99 being fed by a quite modified Cobra 142-GTL (Has 80 am channels plus ssb, and more wattage) and Thnuderbolt-101 linear?

[@ProdigalPorcupine]

I used to enjoy lighting up fluorescent tubes with my CB aerial to impress my friends back in the day. You could definitely get little lights for the tips of aerials that were energised by the RF. In the old pre-legalisation days in the U.K, having an indicator atop your aerial telling the world you’re transmitting seemed a rather unwise thing to do... :-)

[@Blazer02LS]

Yep, used to have them on the rack at the CB shop I worked in. The average 4 watt rig would make them glow a bit. The rigs we built would light them up like the sun...

[@paintfree1]

It also works with LED's. I had a tiny voltage regulator circuit with a little LED taped to the top of my antenna. Positive touching the antenna, negative just flapping in the breeze. It did light up when transmitting. Very fun

[@CsBence98]

@@paintfree1 We at the radio club have a board tiled with dipoles with a rectifier and LED in the middle, for demonstrating directionality of antennas. It's quite fun to drag the transmitting Yagi around and see the lights follow :D

[@Matt-re8bt]

I have to admit that I spent a lot of this video wincing, waiting for an "ElectroBoom moment".

[@JOHN-wy2iv]

I remember being in my cabin on the Belfast to Liverpool ferry and watching the fluorescent tube glow dimly every few seconds. I then realised it was the ship's radar rotating and causing the tube to glow.

[@blitzroehre1807]

The 555 was not so cheap in 1974, about 3 USD apiece if I remember correctly...... Been in production for a long time :-)

[@tubastuff]

Old time neon sign makers would use a "Violet Ray" device with a metal probe rather than a gas tube to accomplish the same end. I wish there were a similar device to help me sort out a bin of LEDs--all clear, but different colors.

[@bigclivedotcom]

The neon company violet wand was exactly the same inside as the fetish one.

[@tubastuff]

@@bigclivedotcom Yup--and they're still made--you can buy them on Amazon. Back when I was experimenting with the then-new helium-neon lasers, I borrowed one from a friend--whose mother owned a beauty parlor. It worked well to test that the gases were right.

[@bigclivedotcom]

@@tubastuff They seem to call them darsonval units now. Don't use a metal rod electrode in them though. I made a video about one.

[@RedFathom]

made a string of Christmas lights out of some of those colored neon tubes they are very nice.

[@bigclivedotcom]

I've got a video about making strings of neon lights.

[@RedFathom]

@@bigclivedotcom yeah, I made a 110v version. the coloured ones are really nice. I got one of those sets on eBay with the red white blue green, and yellow lights.

[@johnm2012]

I'm old enough to remember the 555 first becoming available. It's truly a great chip but I seem to remember the 741 op amp pre-dating it.

[@bigclivedotcom]

The 741 is about 53 years old.

[@clarencegreen3071]

Anybody here old enough to remember the 709 op amp? You had to have used a 709 to properly appreciate a 741.

[@Tassie-Devil]

Q. regarding frequency: Unless I misunderstood, the 555 is toggling the transistor at low frequency (looking at the 2 x 10uF caps)... so what determines the RF frequency of the transformer driver?

[@SkyChaserCom]

So cool. Good ole' Nikola Tesla :) Looks like a solution state Tesla / Oudin flyback type coil. Like a scaled down violet ray device (with an oscillator instead of a spark gap). The 555 is a legendary timer chip.

[@JimTheZombieHunter]

Where the hell have I been? Had no idea that coloured "neons" (Actually UV mercury lamps with phosphor coated envelopes) had made some sort of a comeback. I still; have a few green scavenged from a 70's Betamax, and blue from fluoro lamp starters. Sorry Clive, I've been remiss .. busy with my bus build and work - haven't watched you in a while. As I recall you're a whiskey and cream soda man - myself straight Kentucky corn hooch and a cigar. A pleasure though to share a cup once again with you this fine evening.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Also available in blue from the same seller:- www.ebay.co.uk/itm/382851356468

[@888johnmac]

aah , good to see the pliers of knowledge being used

[@icanfixit7179]

I have a question for big Clive where did you get those coloured mini neon lights

[@redeye619]

I've got a much new version of this, I use it to check fluro tubes that got mixed up, great to identify the different color temps

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

reminds me when i used to put one hand on a plasma coil lamp and hold a CFbulb in the the and itll glow

[@SarahC2]

2 years back! I missed this one. Clive, when you said capacitive coupling is used through the batteries as the return from the HV antenna... (I don't know much about antennas and things) I read elsewhere that the "right" frequency of electric past a non-grounded wire (antenna) in a circuit "leaks" the electric out into the air due to radio emission... so would some of the HV coming from the antenna be from radio emissions? Not needing a "return" path?

[@Streamtronics]

wondering if this is cheaper than just using an NE556 which I believe is basically two NE555 in one package

[@AntonioClaudioMichael]

Very nice use for a Rf jammer @BigCliveDotCom

[@DarthBlazer.]

The term is bi-stable latch, I designed a very similar circuit in college for a reaction time tester based on a 555 driving 10 or so LEDs. Don't remember as much as I wish I did though!

[@carlswenson5403]

just now learning about the ti555 thingy .. any chance you could do more content about this chip?

[@frinkemon]

Only Big Clive would have that many neon bulbs!... And a special tester.

[@CoolerQ]

Those are definitely not the "other naughty uses" I was expecting you to talk about ;)

[@PyroRob69]

555's used to be something everyone kept in their stock parts. So many people out there have no idea how to use them any more.

[@AntonioClaudioMichael]

Very nice breakdown on the 555 chip as well as the complete circuit very retro Build very reliable setup @BigCliveDotCom

[@spokehedz]

Ahh... So now I understand the cascaded timers... Clever.

[@chriskidder1781]

Hey Clive! Random question, ive been researching induction brazing. What im seeing is the eddi current almost backfeed into the induction coil being used, im fairly convinced i am just lacking the proper power supply as the power i am using is 110v 1000 watts, however im curious if its possible to get it working in a more portable fashion?

[@bigclivedotcom]

There are various induction coil kits, but for very high power use it really requires mains power and water cooling of the coils.

[@matthewmiller6068]

You should check out the florescent tube testers like that! Never knew it existed until someone brought one to work to show off...

[@CollectiveSoftware]

Have you tried it on fluorescents? Also, if you have a plasma ball, it's basically same thing (high voltage RF) and you can play with neon tubes and fluoros

[@martinda7446]

PS That was a brilliant one Clive.

[@jkobain]

Look who's there. With his lovely beard!

[@T2D.SteveArcs]

Hi Clive there is no transformer as such in a slot jammer it's just a primary wound onto the secondary antenna perpendicular one end of the secondary drives the gate of a rf fet and the other is OP antenna more of an air core Tesla coil deal also they usually use around 36v or more and have a more powerful op if u want one I have one could send you to show.. good work on the best yt taredown channel ...

[@aaabeverages7152]

Clive: can you use copper screen to block the EMF from this tool? E.g. Shield your equipment that you may have on your person, and still detect faulty neon.

[@sparkyprojects]

My first oscillator circuit was the astable multivibrator, my second was the 555. I wonder why they didn't use the 556 (dual 555) The 3 divider resistors in the 555 are all 5k, but the inventor says that's not how it got it's number.

[@johnpossum556]

How did it supposedly get its # then?

[@sparkyprojects]

@@johnpossum556 No idea, the wiki article says "Hans Camenzind has stated that the part number was arbitrary, thus it was simply a coincidence they matched"

[@johngrant5749]

My first thought too why a 556 wasn’t used.

[@hotgluegunguy]

I would imagine that there are more "fake" 555s in circulation than 556s, so it might have been a few cents cheaper to do it this way.

[@victornpb]

You should test this agains those fancy electronic door locks!!

[@youliantroyanov2941]

Awesome. This so useful. Want.

[@trevorhaddox6884]

Joe's Classic Arcade channel found and discussed one of those anti-jammer antenna circuits he found in an old pong game.

[@kingsman428]

Not surprised, I worked in that industry for 25 years and high voltage generators were the bane of an engineer's life because fraudsters used them to inject HV into video games and fruit machines causing the processor to freak out with the intent of free credits or trying to get the hopper to empty itself.

[@twocvbloke]

I bought a pack of 50x NE555p ICs recently, just to play with really, one of the oldest ICs still in production but still providing entertainment even here in the 20s... :D

[@youwilldisobey]

Excellent ..... Excellent dear Ming my naughty thanks

[@Chris_Grossman]

What frequency does the 555 run at? What frequency does the astable multivibrator run at?

[@ProfessorYana]

> RF-based neon tube tester that can be used to crash certain kinds of electronics *[THE PAYDAY GANG has entered the chat]*

[@plaws0]

Lol! c.1977, the local CB Radio shop sold "Tenna Toppers". Neon bulb, inch and a half of plastic tube, and a $5 price tag (or whatever it was back in the day that was much higher than the BOM would indicate). They were pretty neat going down the road but played hell with your antenna systes standing wave ratio. Fun times. Any idea what frequency this thing was transmitting on?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Not sure the frequency. I seem to recall the antenna toppers maybe having one lead folded up and one down?

[@lacossanostra]

will the neon on of pulsing tube tester also work on a crook tube??

[@BrianSu]

This is just a tesla coil isn't it? I've got a mini tesla coil that does exactly that.

[@gavincurtis]

Clive showing off his colored little neons. I had to order some after this.

[@rysacroft]

I did not know that neons came in any colour other than red. That's why I love Clive's channel. Is it Neon or some other gas inside?

[@gavincurtis]

@@rysacroft that is a Clive question. I suspect different gases and phosphor combinations like conventional neon sign tubes. I got the color assortment from Amazon.

[@taylorhealy7889]

would it be possible to modify the circuit to supply continuous power instead of flashing?

[@electroshed]

Oooh I do like those blue neons !

[@bigclivedotcom]

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362591136761

[@mrnmrn1]

The problem with these colour neons (other than the orange/red verisons which are not phosphor based), they fail quite soon. They can fail within a year in 24/7 operation. Alhough I've seen green ones last 5-8 years in fridges.

[@bigclivedotcom]

@@mrnmrn1 I always under run them with a higher value resistor.

[@jonathancrow626]

Where did you get all the neon bulbs? I am having trouble finding them...

[@bigclivedotcom]

eBay. My preferred ones are 6mm by 16mm:- www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=100pcs+neon+lamp&_sacat=0&_sop=15