[Arny Krueger]

"Chris Hornbeck" wrote in
message
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:27:58 +1100, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

**I've done a few of these with LEDs. The original neon
was a big (expensive) sucker. MUCH larger than NE-2 and
other types. If you can find a friend with some
electronic nouse, ask them to wire up some nice, bright
LEDs (blue ones look way cool) in place of the neon. The
result will be a long lasting, bright and clear speed
indicator. Naturally, you need to drive the LED with
mains frequency. This is not difficult stuff.

Several caveats:

NE-2's should be free from anybody over a certain age, if
you know what I mean. Geezers have boxes of 'em. No magic
was involved in their manufacture and they last for many
decades.

Neons fired bidirectionally (120Hz for 60Hz Edison).
LED's don't.

Neons arc'd over at about 60 to 80 volts. LED's are
semiconductors and operate a little differently...

Yes, but strobes stop repeated images like a strobe disk, when you flash
them at submultiples of the design frequency, so it doesn't matter.