White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

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agbot
 
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White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

Post by agbot »

I assembled my first Ice Tube Clock and everything appears to be functioning as desired. Yea! However, after leaving it powered up for the first couple of hours I noticed some white mystery-stuff inside the tube. I double/triple checked voltages as directed in the tutorial and they looked good. Segments operate fine (except the middle-horizontal segments are slightly dimmer than the others). Maybe it's some excess cleaning substance from manufacturing that glazed over once exposed to some heat? It doesn't seem to be actively spreading now that I noticed it. Aesthetically I'm not going to lose any sleep over it but does anyone have any thoughts if it's something I should be concerned about? Hopefully not since I'm itchin' to get on to dimming and time-sync. :)
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mitpatterson
 
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Re: White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

Post by mitpatterson »

mine was like that from the get go, so i think its normal, not sure what it is

adafruit
 
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Re: White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

Post by adafruit »

http://www.ladyada.net/make/icetube/parts.html

"IV-18 vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) tube

It is normal for the tube to have a black 'spot' on the back and white 'paint' on the back of the display."

agbot
 
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Re: White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

Post by agbot »

Got it - thanks. I noticed the black spot was normal from the pictures but must not have paid close enough attention to the white stuff. Onwards!

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stinkbutt
 
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Re: White substance appeared inside Ice Tube after power-up?

Post by stinkbutt »

There is a stupid joke to be made in this post. Something about going blind, or hair growing out of your palms, but I can't seem to pin it down.

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