One of the tubes on my IN-18 clock is on the way out. Cathode poisoning. Rather than spend another $50 bucks on a new tube, I thought I'd pick up one of these cool Nixie Tube Healer kits to heal the tube. $60 bucks on eBay. Yes, more than the cost of a new tube, but when all is said and done, I'll have a cool test fixture for tubes and future projects.

The first one got lost in the mail. It took a few weeks, coming from Europe, but it eventually arrived at an international sorting facility in the US. However, it was then rerouted to London for some unknown reason. According to the tracking number, it never left. I contacted the seller and he agreed to send me another one. About a month after the initial purchase, I finally had my kit. What an ordeal!

Uh, where are the assembly instructions? I tried the website that was printed on the PCB, but it was an invalid URL. We're batting 1000 here. I had to contact the seller, who promptly emailed me a very detailed assembly guide on .pdf. It would have been nice if a download link was provided with the kit.



It took me about two hours to assemble. I took my time and double-checked everything as I went.



Piece of cake.



I then installed it into the housing.



Not too shabby.





I then installed my ailing IN-18 and connected a 12V 3A power supply.



Nothing happened.

I pulled out my voltmeter and took a reading at the HV output port. Unfortunately, it's only putting out about 125 volts. That's not enough to fire an IN-18. I need at least 170 volts.



The output voltage on the side of the enclosure clearly states that the max output voltage is supposed to be 200V. I double and triple checked all my solder joints. I even swapped out the nixie driver chip for a new one. Still, nothing. I contacted the eBay seller who attempted to troubleshoot my unit via email. He pointed out a few spots on the PCB where I could take some readings to verify that it was putting out 200 volts. All the readings came back as 125V. He then later got back to me and said that he was confused and was thinking of a different unit and that mine was indeed rated for 125V. That's insane because the tube socket is for an IN-18 and the case says right on it that the output voltage is 200 volts. With all the back and forth with the seller, my patience had worn thin. I waited a month, and the stupid thing doesn't even work as advertised.

$60 bucks down the toilet. I should have just brought a new tube.