 Creative recycling
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Conundrum
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Thu Nov 08 2012, 10:14PM
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Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
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Hi all.
This is interesting, a way to recycle surplus or otherwise useless VFDs from old junk.
It seems that a simple grid of Highlighter pen dots will fluoresce nicely when illuminated with the blue/green light from these.
So make a small PCB with an HV850, bridge rectifier and a few MPSA42s with a cheap micro and a 4017 or 74HC138 as the driver.
A good starting point for the micro is the 12F683 as it has lots of program memory, internal clock and up to 5 IO lines.
Code just needs to sequence the 4017 and sense it has reached *10.
Output on 3 pins drives the 74HC138, which can be used to drive the grids (5V) or for a higher display pin count use a pair of 4017s.
Breadboard tested it just now, it seems to work well but need to finalise the board.
Using an HV850 is a lot less current hungry than a buck circuit..
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