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Re: Mercury units burning dim in cold weather
Posted By: Gavin In Response To: Mercury units burning dim in cold weather (Eve Hoyt)
Date: Saturday, 17 January 2015, at 7:59 a.m.
A few things need to be ascertained before a diagnosis can be made. 1 - Did you roll the mercury to both ends of the tube and then burn in with an ironcore transformer? 2- are you using an electronic transformer and the dull side of the tube is on one of the transformer feeds?
Couple of points to assist you... a neon/argon mix is always preferential for cold weather.. you can fill to ratio using your gas bottles 70/30. 50/50 etc. Always make sure the mercury is at both ends of the tube and fully burnt in with an iron core before installation. If using an electronic transformer as power for the sign and no clear red tubes are present then you need not use an electronic transformer that has anti " jelly beaning" cct... its this cct in many transformers that can give rise to mercury migration as it sometimes implements a DC effect on the tube and pushes the vapour to one end. What electrodes are used? Some of the Chinese ones are terrible for staining although I think this may not be the case as the tube is quite new.
My guess its the transformer... Coolneon ones do this a lot even though they are sold as suitable for argon tubes and should be avoided. NeonPro are excellent and after using quite few hundred, ive never had mercury migration issues.
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