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Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by Animats on Sunday October 02, 2016 @04:50PM (#12624169)
Artisanal vacuum tubes are a thing.[1] There's some interest in this from the vinyl record and overpriced tube amp crowd. There are even people who rebuild old CRTs for early TVs.[2] It's a lot of work.

[1] http://hackaday.com/2014/11/21/artisanal-vacuum-tubes-hackad... [2] http://www.earlytelevision.org/crt_rebuild.html

Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by mozumder on Sunday October 02, 2016 @11:44PM (#12625441)
Almost as cool as artisinal lightbulbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLp9Mn-5rg
Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by GirlsCanCode on Sunday October 02, 2016 @04:57PM (#12624193)
There's no vacuum in a Nixie Tube!

That being said, it would be nice if classic tubes of yesteryear can be remade efficiently. Especially for antique radio enthusiasts.

Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by makomk on Sunday October 02, 2016 @08:58PM (#12625043)
No theoretical reason why r couldn't be done, I think the more common guitar amp tubes are even in commercial production in China (and supposedly they've improved the robustness too). Bit of a niche market though.

glasslinger on YouTube has been experimenting with making some of the more unusual tubes too: https://youtu.be/BXAjspPLzRQ

Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by fake-name on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:47PM (#12624857)
Uh, what?

Production involves pumping down to high vacuum, heating to degas, and then refilling with neon/argon at low pressure. Granted the production tube isn't at high vacuum, but it's not equivalent to ambient.

Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by erikpukinskis on Sunday October 02, 2016 @11:44PM (#12625440)
When they fill it with gas, wouldn't you say it is no longer a vacuum?
Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by 3chelon on Monday October 03, 2016 @06:48AM (#12626401)
This entire class of technology was universally known as "vacuum tubes" for a good reason.
Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by inlined on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:30PM (#12624804)
Why do you say there's no vacuum? That's one of the steps in the videos.
Re:The Art of Making a Nixie Tube [video] by dekhn on Sunday October 02, 2016 @11:21PM (#12625389)
Technically, at the end of the process, the resulting tube's gas pressure is high enough to be called "low pressure" rather than, say, "rough", "medium", or "high vacuum".