In article ,
"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2008-08-18, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
In article ,
"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

[ ... ]

O.K. Also, I think that if they are being run brighter, they
keep from flickering longer. I've got an old surge protector box with
rocker switches with Neon lamps and they have all given up by now. It
does not matter really in this case, but they are all dark, and
difficult to access and replace. :-)

I think that the harder one drives a neon bulb, the sooner it wears out.

Well ... the sooner the envelope will darken with deposited
electrode vapor. But I think that it keeps the actual light behind the
darkening pretty constant.

I recall reading a datasheet on how to use neon lamps, and that this
datasheet said the the voltage needed to maintain the glow (it's not an
arc) increased with increasing usage of the lamp.


A neon will flicker if it doesn't have enough current to cause the
plasma sheath to fully cover the smaller electrode, but that's a
different problem.

And the required current seems to increase over time.

The simpler explanation is that someone replaced the pilot light when
the original got annoying.

Certainly possible -- especially if the pilot is easy to get to.

I hereby invoke Occam's Razor.


[ ... ]

"On the dole" -- are you in the UK by any chance? Or from
there?

Neither. But I like their turn of phrase.

O.K. I can understand that.

Is Boston close enough?

If you're in the Irish part, sure. They would say that. :-)

Well, the wife is Irish. Close enough?

That will do, I think. :-)

Mine is French-Canadian, so I don't have that excuse. :-)

They must have a suitable phrase that can be translated.

My favorite is "My Wife, The Moon" in transliteration. My wife asserts
that this cannot be translated (versus transliterated), but I think that
the meaning is quite clear. The common root is lunacy and lunatic.


Joe Gwinn