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David Farber

Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

I opened it up and the crimps and resistors are good. Do you have
any idea what the lamp's breakdown voltage specification indicates?
According to the datasheet, the NE-2 has a breakdown voltage of
65VAC. The high brightness bulbs have a higher breakdown voltage of
95VAC.

The voltage will not make much difference.

Many of the common neon bulbs will take about 90 volts to light. When
they do light they act almost like a voltage regulator and will have
about 70 volts across them no matter what the current is (within
limits of blowing up) The higher brightness bulbs will often have
more voltage across them. The resistor is to limit the current
though them to a safe level. On an AC circuit you will have over 150
volts peak so most any common bulb will fire off.

If you have a way of slowly raising the voltage on the bulbs, you can
check at what voltage they first light at. Then cut the voltage off
and drop it to about 10 volts below that voltage. Then just touch
the bulb and it will fire off. The extra heat eill be enough to make
it light up.

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for the great explanation.

--
David Farber
Los Osos, CA