This is a panel of neon relaxation oscillators that I made up a while back for fun. Each "pixel" consists of a neon lamp, diode, capacitor and two resistors. The resistor values are chosen to put the neon lamps on the very edge of oscillation, so they don't all continuously flash, but will go in random bursts depending on ambient lighting conditions and various other external factors. The panel runs directly on 240V mains (UK) and can "bite" if mishandled, although there is a high level of current limiting on each circuit.
It’s the prototype supercomputer!
old electronic organs had them inside their chest.. like the eminent 80 organ
Found this watching you repair the stream supercomputer, didn't know you'd done this before
How is it I've just seen this video for the first time? Does YouTube hide the older content people make?
If you haven't already done so at some point in time could you do a more extensive video on this panel, or even better build another one? Could be very nice and long q&a video as well.
Please do more with tubes and such.
Touch it. Tooooooouuuuuuch it. I dare you.
Reminds me of the "computer banks" props from the old Star Trek series… I wonder if this is how they did it.
Very nice Clive. I've never thought of doing this as art. It's captivating and is an excellent conversation piece. This gives me an idea of my own. Thanks for the inspiration.
If you do a search for neon relaxation oscillator on Google you will find various schematics. Some of them show the neon directly across the capacitor which is not a good idea since it results in very high electrode current pulses which blacken the neon due to electrode sputtering. I recommend at least 10Kohm in series between the cap and neon, or in the case of the panel in the video above it is a much higher value (47K I think) The charge resistor I used was 470K on 240V mains voltage.
Nice. Is there a circuit diagram for the individual "pixels" on the net any where?