"John E." wrote:

Came across a 90's vintage IR controller for printing industry (drives Q-H
lamps for drying ink in the paper path) that uses a single-digit 7-segment
display that looks like a nixie tube (more like a white-hot wire segment)
display. The 16-pin DIP socket is marked IEE-Atlas, and the single-digit
display is marked "IEEFFD21 5DX C". Each digit display is 15 pin on a 16 DIP
pattern.

I've done the requisite Google, but come up with nothing. The drivers on the
PCB are MC14511BPC which is a standard CC LED 7-segment driver.

What are these? They don't look anything like LED segments (I can see each
wire-like segment behind the glass front of each digit's display). Can I just
replace these with a common LED display? Or are replacements available?

Thanks,
--
John English


Incandescent, but not Numitron ... I think. ISTR that Numitron displays were
packaged in glass envelopes, like the Nixie or your garden variety "valve"
(tipping my hat to Brits), and were designed to stand upright. Your device, on
the other hand, is 16-pin DIP.

I have a handfull of these things, purchased new circa 1972 from a small "TTL
chips and stuff" mail order company in Missouri (if memory serves) for use in
the second digital clock I had designed. (First clock used Nixies) Nixies
turned out to be way too bright though, and there were no inexpensive 7-segment
LEDs back then. The incandescent wires drew a low of current, and 6 displays
required a robust p.s., so I replaced these displays with LEDs as soon as the
latter became available.

The incandescent displays I have are not marked with a manufacturer's name, just
"8-43-19" silk-screened in white paint on one side of the black case.