So I'm always browsing the interesting soviet parts that turn up on ebay and came across this vacuum fluorescent display tube the IV15.
IV-15 Original 100%! a-g DM160 / 6977 tiny VFD tube Soviet Magic Green Glow NEW | eBay
Looking at the datasheet its a small directly heated triode. This has me wondering what the curves would look like? What if this turned out to be an incredibly linear tube at low voltages
IV-15 Original 100%! a-g DM160 / 6977 tiny VFD tube Soviet Magic Green Glow NEW | eBay
Looking at the datasheet its a small directly heated triode. This has me wondering what the curves would look like? What if this turned out to be an incredibly linear tube at low voltages

When Korg came out with the VFD based Nu-tube, I dug out an old VFD clock and tried it as an amplifier. Let's just say it's not ready for HiFi, but then neither is the Nu-tube.
If you search for that tube number, you'll find a store that sells them for 4$USD... They have about 10 left so I didn't post the link to make it harder for tube harvesters to hoard them.
I considered buying a couple because it would be a cool level meter but since I have no experience with a DHT, it seems like a PITA.
If someone has a design I could use to feed it audio and get it to flash like in the video (on the page of the store you can Google), I'd be down. I wonder if you could run left and right heaters in series from the same supply like modern tubes? 0.8V for a heater is kind of complicated (save for making a 1.25V supply with LM317 and using a diode).
I considered buying a couple because it would be a cool level meter but since I have no experience with a DHT, it seems like a PITA.
If someone has a design I could use to feed it audio and get it to flash like in the video (on the page of the store you can Google), I'd be down. I wonder if you could run left and right heaters in series from the same supply like modern tubes? 0.8V for a heater is kind of complicated (save for making a 1.25V supply with LM317 and using a diode).
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If you search on the page for "DM160", you'll find some loadlines here;
The uTracer, a miniature Tube Tester / Tube Curve Tracer.
The uTracer, a miniature Tube Tester / Tube Curve Tracer.