bigclive

Neat little cold cathode driver (Patreon)

Published:

2023-04-15 04:22:14

Imported:

2023-04

Content

Yet another UVC video (sorry!). I've got a bug at the moment, so I probably sound a bit husky in this video.

The most notable thing about this set is the small inverter that can also drive short neon or argon/mercury tubes.

The actual UVC tube seems nicely made, and rather disturbingly there's a picture on the listing of a massive pile of them being hand tested by a Chinese operative. I'd presume that area of the factory must be very sterile.

I have tested the power supply with a short neon and mercury tube (12"/300mm) and it worked well, so maybe good for a discharge tube display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxC-Sv2v9wQ

Files

USB cold-cathode UVC/neon driver - with schematic

Quite a smart little module. It's a surface mount cold cathode driver intended for use with UVC/ozone sterilisation tubes. But it will potentially drive other short neon tubes about 400mm/16" long. The circuitry is very similar to the classic cold cathode drivers intended for providing illumination in PC cases and in some arcade games. But the use of SMD components makes it look quite neat. It can theoretically drive two tubes if you add another capacitor to the output. This matched set of tube and driver came from AliExpress:- https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004618501197.html You can buy the bare tubes or the tube and driver together. If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. #ElectronicsCreators