Surprise! This is NOT an LED Display!
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- Опубліковано 13 вер 2024
- Another rare orphan display from IEE that sought to offer an affordable (and possible) option for a digital display that looks like it's LED but is in fact incandescent. A fraction of the power requirements of what an LED equivalent would have been in the mid-70's, but strangely designed to be non-serviceable. A brief stop-gap measure on the way to cheap high brightness LED displays that came a decade later. Enjoy!
Bright 7-Segment incandescent displays - • When Bright Digital Di...
Dialight incandescent 7-Segment displays - • Incandescent Numerical...
Building my Retro BCD Bench Clock - • Fran's Retro Bench: BC...
The IEE "Status Indicator" Display Module - • The IEE "Status Indica...
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As someone used to LEDs, the transition time (particularly the turn-on time) of the lamps really stands out. The gradual turn-on time does make this display less harsh on the eyes. 👍️
Now that even a toaster has a beefy micro, people should start implementing this as a feature
Indeed, for a moment I thought it was some kind of colored LCD, and thought, “that’s pretty cool…”
That can be done with LED displays as well, if anyone wanted to.
@@melgross so what would you do? Change the duty cycle, reduce the current, or…? Just curious. Thanks.
@@eclexian Using Pulse Width Modulation ("PWM") on a modern microcontroller, one could start a string of pulses at some arbitrary frequency, and vary the duty cycle of the pulses to adjust the apparent "on" and "off" time. If the arbitrary frequency is high enough (Arduino uses > 400 Hz, for example), it will appear to the human eye to be getting brighter and dimmer as the duty cycle changes.
Conversely, if the frequency is too low (often less than 100 Hz), you'll see "flickering." If you've ever seen flickering lights in someone's UA-cam video, it's because the camera's shutter is running faster than the PWM pulses. Take any UA-camr in Europe or Asia, where the mains frequency is 50 Hz, but everyone's camera films at 60 Hz. The people standing in the room may not perceive the flicker, but the camera will definitely notice it. (Trivia: Indoor sports photographers had a huge problem with this when fluorescent lighting became commonplace.)
Normally used with keep alive resistors across the transistors, so that your 6.3V lamps would last an incredibly long time on the 4.5V coming off an open collector TTL output.
I would imagine that these lasted similarly to the LEDs of the time, which, in my experience, didn’t last nearly as long as the manufacturers stated in their sheets.
@@melgross With the keep alive resistors, and running the 6.3V lamps at 4V6, the incandescent lamps last a really long time, up to 40 years, simply because they do not have that much thermal stress on them, and the cycling is gentle.
@@melgross As always, depends how hard you drive them.
@@SeanBZA generally true. But as with any device, in my experience, you will have failures. Do you know how incandescent bulbs are life tested and rated? A number, say 1,000 are run. When half burn out, you’ve got the rated life of the bulbs. It’s a normal, or Gaussian curve. Half will live longer, by some amount, and half will live less, by some amount. So when taking this into account,maven with lower voltages and current, some will last 40 years,and some will last a year, or two. That’s for individual bulbs, but when one blows, the device is bad.
@@sheiladawg1664 as always. But they are supposed to be run within the manufacturer’s specs.
The slow changing segments gave me the idea that is was actually a "reverse" LCD display with red backlight.
Those nice old electronics that were once the reason I subscribed. It's all over 40 years old and yet so functional.
Quality or survivor bias?
Its probably not that much of a surprise, but Last time I was mucking around with a breadboard, My brain started playing me the FranLab theme tune. 🎶In my laaaaab. Go berserk.🎶 I wasn't working tho, just messing about. Im not complaining in the slightest. Cheers Fran!
I remember as a teen, having the impression that Dialight indicators were pretty robust, as I can't recall my father ever having to replace one. And, I notice that they're still in business, which is nice.
In college, in the early 1980s, I made a 24-inch clock display. Using regular screw in 60 watt bulbs. I think the most difficult thing was making the seven segment display. It took some carpentry
cant imagine
the heat and cost to operate that 24/7/365 What switching components did you use? (obviously not mechanical relays)
I did something similar, except each of my segments was made of 3, 6V lamps. When my digit showed an 8 it was throwing off 40W of light - who needs a room light.
60W lamps, yours must have been huge.
I once say a display at a horse track made up of 4 foot florescent tubes - that was quite large.
@@billschlembach8055 The simplest means of driving the 60W 120/240VAC bulbs would be with a simple Triac driver along with an opto-isolator (if your low voltage DC logic is not mains referenced).
@@billschlembach8055 Why not mechanical relays? They seem like a sensible way to do it. Relays for a seconds display would probably wear out but for minutes they should last forever.
Wins Most Power Hungry Clock ever made Award
I remember seeing what would be a very similar display in a lift/elevator of an hotel in Europe built in the mid 70s. It would perhaps explain the connectors and being mostly a swappable device rather than a maintainable one.
That seems the only use for them. I can't think of any other application for a single digit display.
@@Payne2view Sure you can, a 10 second countdown (9 to 0) for your model rocket launcher! Or, as every self respecting psychopath bomber knows, every bomb needs a big digit countdown timer along with the equally mandatory flashing LED so as to ensure that only the cameraman can locate the bomb before detonation (apparently all those flashing lights render bombs invisible to mere humans without special bomb detecting cameras).
@@Payne2view You'd think they'd use a two-digit display just to standardize production . Might be not that big a deal though.
I was thinking that these reminded me so much of elevator floor indicators!
I had a digital clock in the '70s that had incandescent bulbs in it. As I recall, it was advertised as being visible in daylight. The bulbs were replaceable, but difficult to get at. It got warm, and the plastic case had discolored from the heat after a decade or so...
About 70 or 71 I wanted a 7 segment display but could not afford one on my paper route money. So I made one by cutting up a milk carton and taping Christmas replacement bulbs and milk carton baffles inside. Segments were all different colors because the bulbs were.
Yay, Fran's back on the bench!
I worked in a wire and cable factory 30 years ago. They had an electric copper furnace that had displays this big. Couldn't say whether they were just big red LEDs or incandescent; I just always assumed back then that any 7-segment display was either LED or VFD. In this particular use case, the indicators didn't need to be daylight bright, but they needed to be big enough to read at a glance from 20 feet away.
South Wire?
As for the serviceability: It looks like you could bend back the tabs on top/bottom, and remove the circuits. Then you could desolder a single segment bulb..
Those IEE units are almost certainly plug-in, i.e. male flat pins seat into slot-harness. No need to solder wires to them - make your own harness!
Due to the mounting holes, it looks like a lift display where there are less than 10 floors?
A lift with a decimal point?
@@wolfgangmcq Yes - it was a quick indication to engineers there was an error/problem with the lift logic.
The thing about light bulbs is, people only think they need to be easily replaceable because we have grown used to not expecting them to last long ..... These lamps look slightly under-run (you can actually see the filaments warm up and cool down; suitable resistors across C-E of the switching transistors would allow a small current to flow even while off, which might improve the turn-on time; but I don't know whether this would wear the filament out sooner or help extend its life by reducing the thermal shock of switching, if it makes any difference at all); so the intention probably was for the displays to last, if not forever, then at least long enough until an LED replacement became available.
Back in the 70's I built an up/down counter and lamp driver for a film footage counter. The display itself was a beautiful thing, each number was drilled into the face of a sheet of clear Perspex and edge lit by multiple lamps (4 or 6 each, I forget). So there were ten sheets for each number, four numbers across the display. Rebulbing it was epic! The numbers were about a foot high, all curved shapes and looked beautiful.
I really like how those incandescent lamps turn on and off. I will include a fade in animation in my 7 Segment LED Projects.
I remember being able to buy 7-segment incandescent displays that were flat "DIP" packages, with each segment an incandescent filament all enclosed under the same glass top.
yep, i may well have an odd one lurking around, i certainly have one in a valve/tube type 9 pin B9A glass envelope, unfortunately one or more filaments open circuit
Those were often used in aviation radios. They were readable in pretty bright light. One time I fixed a timer that was installed in a mixing console that used them.
Sounds like the Minitron 3015. Different versions have a suffix letter for example 3015F or 3015G.
yes, they are minitron displays. I have a quartet of what I beleive to be Fuji brand minitrons in what used to be a clock display. I should probably post it here on tube of you-ness.@@nick1austin
I notice that the bulbs are quite dim when they are on. Incandescent lamps have an inverse 4th order relationship between the applied voltage (as a percentage of their full brightness voltage) and their lifetime. It's possible that these are designed for full brightness at 12v or 15v, and are deliberately run at a lower voltage (5v) to increase their life. So, if the original life of the bulb is, say, 500 hours at full brightness, running them at 1/3 of their full brightness voltage would make them last for about 40,500 hours.
Were these used in the film "The Black Hole" from 1979 on the Cygnus and Palomino ship's instrument panels ?
I realize I’m a bit late to the punch on this one, but I recently found one of these displays new in its box, with postage markings indicating it was sent to an engineer at Tektronix. Even more interesting is the fact that it doesn’t display seven segments, it displays the seven days of the week, all arranged in the locations of the seven segments.
Something a car manufacturer would use in the speedometer, requiring an entire dash replacement, which entails removing the exhaust system and trunk deck.
Reason it wasn't serviceable: countdown timer for the bombs you see in movies
10:00, to preserve the whole bag you can puncture just one side of the bag just below the sealing and then cut along the sealing to make a hole big enough to slide the item out and back in. The sealing gets broken anyway but the bag stays in one piece.
The early Sanyo cash registers I worked on had similar displays only smaller - the lamps were 5mm across.
All the logic was discrete TTL chips
In 1983, I had to get a Ti 35 Scientific Engineering calculator for Vocational Technical School, much like the Texas Instruments you had in this video! I subscribed! Walt
I haven't smelled 70's air for like 50 years! Wow, man!
Love these evolutionary dead-end display videos, keep them coming! I recently acquired a miniature electromechanical alphanumeric display type Fran hasn't reviewed, it might make for an interesting video perhaps, I haven't powered it up yet.
I love these vintage displays! I scored a stash of I think 8 IEE one plane projection displays a few years back and was hoping to make a clock from them but unfortunately they lack a few numbers so I was going to figure out how to make my own shadow masks but never got around to it. Now I really wanna get back on the project but how to etch such tiny numbers onto some sort of clear film? I've got access to a resin 3d printer and even a laser engraver but I feel that neither would be up to the tiny job. Perhaps some sort of photomasking/etching would work?
How small do you need to go? I regularly do 3mm high text with my laser engraver. You have to play around with the settings a bit to get crisp results but it does work.
Make a picture on a B&W negative of black lines on a big piece of white paper. Then develop that negative and you get them very, very fine. Especially if you use low-ASA (ISO) film.
You just need to calculate the size you need. With graphic-film with high contrast (and a high-contrast-developer) it is even easier.
Laser print onto acetate projector film for the mask then use a gel for the color.
I absolutely agree with the tools you suggested: it's what they would have used decades ago. I am very interested in developing a projection display with four digits, integrated into one housing. I have yet to get to this as I don't have any workspace anymore. Also the lenses required for this are difficult to find (for the focal length needed, which is about 30 to 50mm)@@elvinhaak
Way cool! Thanks Fran!
@Fran, those bulbs remind me of miniature christmas tree lamps.
Boy IEE sure made a wide variety of displays. Never seen this particular one before, although I've seen many of the others you've shared. Another nice video, thanks Fran.
They're still in business I think. Google IEE Displays LA
I'm thinking those contacts on the back must have plugged into a socket. That way when a bulb burns out you just remove a couple screws and pull out the entire thing. The protruding brackets on the top and bottom of the contacts were probably there to align the plug when you put the new one in. Just a guess.
Could you use narrow spade connectors (2.8mm) so you don't have to solder to the terminals? Might make it more serviceable.
It was great seeing you using that Texas Instruments calculator. My dad had that one during the 70s and I remember using it.
My mom had one of those calculators too. I remember using it in the early 80's.
1,2,3,4,5,b(?),7,8,9,0 Great video of an interesting device!
That's the standard for a 7447 driver.
@@dogwalker666 This old CSE still learning stuff. Thank you!
@@WesleyNixon you are welcome.
Those Norinco displays ( I called 'em pin-lights ) were very readable in direct sunlight and used in service station pumps and some of the flight-line test equipment I'd operate on the flightline while in the USAF. Those incandescent lights: I always called 'em grain o' wheat bulbs and they were delicate to handle. I've replaced quite a few in equipment at a Category 2 PMEL (Precision Measuring Equipment Lab) Lab on a USAF base as late as 2016 or so when I "retired". Same for those 327 or 328 bulbs shown in the beginning of the video. ( always got 'em confused as to which was 5VDC or 28 VDC. I wished they'd kept those Norincos in the gas pump display... some of the current lcd displays are horrible!
Here in Australia they were actually officially known as "Grain of wheat" light bulbs. Cars used to have them in the dash up until recently.
I remember making a 7 segment display like this with cardboard from a kids electronics book in the 90's
I love the song! :D I love the bench counter too.
Servicing the display... hmm... It's red, thus could have the bulbs driven quite some way below their rating, prolonging their life. ... And then the others turn out to be green. Shows what I know! :D
Does the green colour plate not slide out to exchange for other colours? Check the packaging for extra colour plates.
These were heavily used in office elevator systems ran entirely by relay logic, they were simply swapped out when they gone bad by that time with LED's, the fact it was a 'digital' display made it cool to the water cooler crowds, they had a long lifespan because the filaments were very under-driven & current controlled.
There was a time when I thought Nixie Tubes were the "cat's meow"...but two things I miss the most? My Boolean Algebra Professor (who wrote the textbook)...and Radio Shack.
There is nothing cooler than the TI-30 calculator. I had one back in the 1980s as a schoolkid, and it got me through my Maths exams (it is 'Maths' in the UK, not 'Math'). Damn, they were heavy on 9V batteries - I'm sure my dad used to curse on the expense when I needed a new battery despite him having the coolest HP programmable calculator that our government paid for him to use - it was unbelievably expensive at the time.
A blast from the past
3:30 I wonder if a suitably aimed laser pointer would reveal the internal structure without scraping the coating off? (I'll have to try this when I can find mine). Love these videos!
Looks like the incandescent christmas tree light bulbs - tho they're longer - they haver similar thin wires sticking out. Neat tho!
European Christmas tree lights, yes. Maybe Fran isn't familiar with them as the typical American ones are much bigger. They seem be called "midget lights" in the US.
It looks like you can open these by lifting the black tang at the top and separating the 2 pieces, then easier to pull out individual dead bulb if ever needing changing.
In the 1970's I had a white GE digital clock radio with a white/yellow display like this, and a 4 inch speaker!
I didn't think of neon, I immediately thought they look like bulbs used for Christmas lighting, except half the length.
I've seen something along these lines before, and while it had solderable lugs, it was inserted into a socket. I suspect that there were sockets available for these displays as well.
I didn't listen yet, but this reminds me of the digital displays in early/mid 80s cars.
Looking forward to seeing the green one powered up.
Hi your calculator is the fist one I bought when I went to college . I have have changed the battery a couple of times. The first electronics book I bought was The TTL cookbook by Don Lancaster.
These look like they could have some kind of plug into the pins on the back for easy replacement as an assembly.
Fran, speaking as a tech who has for years serviced/maintained cameras.... you have a problem with yours that has it crashing into the WhiteClip making anything exposed to near 100% just strait out white & all detail is lost! Most have an auto-kneeing action that will ramp down those parts of the image that are approaching 75% to 80% of peak such that detail is maintained. At present your incredible work is being compromised. What cam are you using? It may have been freaked during your move or it's just aging & needs a tweak, i am certain it used to handle highlights well previously.
I am guessing some of these may have been used (although I am not 100% certain) in applications such as fast food restaurant remote price displays on drive through, gas pumps price displays, industrial equipment control systems, commercial bakery equipment temperature displays, military equipment, some types of control systems, copiers, commercial print shop equipment, medical equipment, Xray machines, and similar applications.
I love the right handed slant that older seven-segment displays had. I wonder why its rare these days…
I thought most 7 segment displays were slanted even today. Is there a new trend I've missed?
@@eDoc2020 They are, but not as much as they used to be.
Very interesting and unusual displays. It's nice to see, how people back then solved problems.. Like in this case, how to build big cost effective bright displays.
Aaaah, i was missing this interesting display sections ... hugs 🥰🥰🥰
Elevator displays? Maybe you could use lug connectors in stead of soldering?
The slow transition rate reminds me of monochrome LCD digit displays (like the ones you'd find in calculators).
Bulbs din´t cost anything at that time, few pennies, and considering the simple assembly, this module was probably much cheaper to produce than comparable displays with replacable bulbs. So service would mean replacing the whole module and still getting away cheaper than having bought the complex display.
yep, there may well have been an all in one pluggable conmector to fit on those solder tags, they look like 110 /0.1 inch blade type size, as used on a lot of smaller speakers and switches
Back in the 1970s I had an alarm clock of similar design but had neon bulbs vs incandescent. It didn't have an alarm set indicator but the switch was double pole. So I added a green neon pilot light from Radio Shack. It looked very futuristic since most people had analog alarm clocks at the time. It worked well for my college years but eventually the segments flickered out as cathode poisoning kicked in.
I thought I was pretty fast at soldering, but your work on that perf board sure gas me beat!😢
Good ol franlab content
I guess the incandescent where designed for long life (low efficiency) so they need no replacements likely can last as long 50000+ hours thus no need for replacement.
Looks like my Ken Tech digital clock which I bought in 78 and still is working.
Also neat to see the timelapse of working on perf board.
Hi Fran, I found two examples recently, somehow managed to reach Johannesburg. The lamps in mine need 12V for good brightness. Wanted to attach a pic but see I can't. Regards
As you now have four you can spell out FrAn LAb!
This would explain why the "LED" displays are white in the 1960s and early 1970s. Something you would see in control rooms in Houston during the Apollo days. My personal favorite is the scene from Planet of The Apes where Taylor looked at the ship's time clock before abandoning it and the display was white.
Yay! back to electronics!
This would've been contemporary with the HP bubble LED displays, so it's definitely bigger and brighter than that. I do like how evenly lit the segments look.
Sweet bit of kit.
IEE... producing advanced displays for cost-no-object government and defense projects.
Univac keypunch machines had these type of displays but in a 2 digit display. I have 3 of them that I built a rack mount clock with.
I would bet they have used uncontaminated bulbs that have an incredibly long service life.
I have several of these bulbs running in various long term luminaries, one has seventeen years at 100% on time, several others do 12 hours a day and also have 17 years.. and counting.
I gave them simple soft start drivers to limit inrush current with cold filaments which would certainly help the switched ones, but either way they are impressive for what can be achieved
with long life requirement.
love this: I think you need to a history of IEE: they were WAY before their time!
Fran. Why not to enable CC. ? Help a lot for overseas audience. Thanks !
Hey that was a cool blues Fran jam too!!
Hello Fran,
A best friend who works at the American Space Museum (Titusville Fl) recently asked if I could help find some #335 lamps for them to use in the last working Apollo launch sequencer (mark IV I believe). These are 28V midget screw base lamps, and were used in the countdown display only.
2" high green 7 segment displays! Everything else in the room including the sequencer used 28V midget flange lamps.
I had a great time, and got to talk to the man who built the sequencer, and keeps it running for the visitors.
Are you still looking for these lamps? I may be have some of them
@@quiltedpine7027 Thank you kindly, but not at the present time. I went a little overboard on the quantity, not knowing that the 335's were only for the countdown display.
Thanks again.
I came across the immediate predecessor to these displays in a job lot of scrap Otis lift (elevator) parts - identical construction in 1 and 2 digits with neons behind a (discoloured) red or orange filter. The DP lamps were still pristine and the lugs unsoldered.
I regret not bidding on the lot now as the whole pile of equipment went for under a fiver.
If it wasn't already an eBay auction it sounds as though that might have been profitable. It's crazy the prices that old vintage electronics fetch on eBay.
@@gavinstirling7088 Warehouse clearance in London - long before the days of eBay. Indeed, dialup bullitin boards were still a thing of beauty.
@@alyssonrowan6835 I used to order random electronic surplus from Bull Electricial, somewhere in England, purely through text listings in one of the national newspapers. One was a job lot of headphones from Virgin Atlantic (branded as such, so guess actual in-flight headphones). Out of something like 50 units, I could only make 5 fully working. I was only a young teenager at the time but been buying rubbish ever since.
@@gavinstirling7088 It isn't rubbish if someone will pay for it ... it is recycled service returns, rejuvenable rejects and scrap systems salvage. It is only rubbish if it goes to landfill. Even bucket load of scrap metal is recyling feed.
One red and three green you could make a clock.
Not that long ago that petrol bowsers had displays which were 7 segment electromagnetic flaps in a figure 8. They could be quite large and worked quick enough to keep up with fuel delivery.
Many petrol stations had similar seven segment electromagnetic flap displays on their forecourts showing temperature, time and fuel prices.
@@peterjf7723 I always wondered if they were actually electronically driven, or if an employee would come out to manually flip the flaps to the correct price every morning.
@@kaasmeester5903 They are electromechanical. I rebuilt a display board for a non profit TV station, for their telethons. It had sen of these, so I used some 25 pair telephone cable, and a 14 AWG return wire. Thumbwheel switches in the control box were set to the desired number, then you pressed the update button. The original was a copy of a tree digit driver, so they had built three that you had to press clear then display buttons. One push button beats six, any day. 😁
Called Ferranti-Packard displays, at least here in the UK. Still commonly seen in older (90s) Tokheim, Schumberger and Gibarco fuel dispensers.
I just can't see this being used in multi-segment displays because of the wide spacing that would be required between each digit
Speaking of displays, Fran did you see the unaired Jeopardy! pilot?
love your "Ha!"s
I definitely thought it was a Christmas light bulb haha
I still have a couple RCA Numitrons in my shop.
Having had a quick look on eBay and seen a bent old NOS IEE for 5 shy of 1.5k how much did you fork out for that joyous triplet if it isn't too rude to ask? Interesting and enjoyable morning watch from the UK - thanks :)
A ULN2803 or ULN200x would be perfect for driving those using modern logic chips etc
I've got hundreds of 4511 drivers, so... My way is more fun.
@@FranLab even better! use those to drive the inputs of the ULN transistor arrays. I’ve built a clock using 4511’s and those Darlington transistor arrays to drive some 12v LED lighting strips to make jumbo 7 seg displays, using shift registers to drive the BCD inputs, 1 shift reg drives 2 digits and the arduino uses 6 lines to drive the whole display (for 6 digits, data,clock,strobe,blank and lamp test)
@@FranLab hundreds? Whoooooa. Now that's a lot. ULN2003 is still relevant here, if the output current exceeds 25mA or so.
Hi Fran, could you do a video on the old style elevator buttons that didn't have any moving parts but were heat activated by touch? Here in Los Angeles they were outlawed after the First Interstate Bank fire because the heat from the fire activated the switch and prevented the elevator from moving off the floor. I was curious as to how those switches operated, especially using 1970's technology.
I believe an I-R sensor tube was in it. My dad demonstrated how a cigarette operated it.
those little incandescent bulbs look like the ones they used in old telco equipment I saw front the 1950's/60's. Maybe just repurposed?
Seen this display in older freight elevator
What's the individual lamp current?
Edit: About 60 mA. (Just watch the video, Hagen. Fran explains it.)
I often comment before the video ends, don't worry, we are all just excited to see a new video from Fran :)
I've been into electronics since I was 10 and in the 50 years I have been into it, I have never seen one of those before! That's interesting.
Just to throw this out there. Those wouldn't be hard to modify with white LEDs or a color similar to the lenses. I know that's not the point here. I'm pretty sure it would be possible to open one without doing so much damage that it can't be fixed reasonably well.
Interesting! Your videos in general have been a great discovery for me this year (wish I'd seen them earlier), and the various types of digital (7-segment, etc) displays you've shown on your channel have made me realize that many of the digital displays that I saw as a kid in the 80's were not, in fact LED displays like I had previously assumed! Many were definitely VFD's, and some were probably even more exotic.
They look like those mini vacuums valves from those russian migs.
Nice calculator!. I still remember breaking apart one of those calculators (with that type of display, but it wasn't a scientific one) just to see the insides, lol. I was like 6 at the time, but i still feel the guilt that it never powered on when i assembled it again :/
I was going to say, maybe it was a one off for a TV show or a film. But then you had 3 more in boxes. LOL.
It looks great, you will have to do a follow up with a green one.