I found a few cool misprinted minitron style 7 segment incandescent displays. Essentially, they are numitrons that are in a flat pack. As best I can tell, they were primarily used in the aviation industry because of their dependability and durability. I’ll take some more photos of them in use after I figure out their pin out. Stay tuned.
The Large Ones:
- Box markings: RS Stock No. 586-863 7 segment filament display.
- Unit Markings: L080705 3015-F
The Small Ones
- Unit Markings: KW-104SAU-8P & 8649, 8611, 8636, 8705
Lore more here: http://www.leftfield.org/~dd/minitron.html
Hi,
I found your posting about the KW-104SAU-8P numitrons.
Have you magaged to get them glowing ?
I got a Control Dispaly Unit from a Litton Inertial Navigation System as it was used in commercial aircraft. I wated to use it in my flight simulator porject and would be quite happy to use the original displays rather than using modern 7seg displays.
Any help appreciated.
Regards,
Florian
hi
can you help me
how to i buy minitron display? and how much 1pcs
Hello -
yes! It took a while to get the pins right but I did manage to get them working.
Flight simulator? That’s awesome. If you’re looking for some, what I have in stock is here: http://www.tubeclockdb.com/forum/Buy-Sell-Trade.html I have those and other similar numitron displays.
-Brian
Hi Brian,
thanks for the link. However, I’m not looking for new or other ones but mainly to get the ones that I have working. Usually the old (scrap) parts that I get still contain most of the elements in a functional way, they are just thrown away since they represent and ancient technology.
Did you use PICs to drive the numitrons ? Do you have a diagram somewhere how you finally lit up the displays ?
I am still thinking back and forth wheter to use the numitrons or just take them out and replace them with modern 7segment displays. Trying to reverse engineer those old aircraft parts is fun but the aim is to get them functional in a way to use them as computer hardware inputs.
Thanks & regards,
Florian
Hm. All of the data sheets I have are here: http://www.tubeclockdb.com/data%20sheets/
Most people drive them like they would a 7-segment LED. They run at about the same voltage so you may be able to just swap one for another. The challenge will be finding the pinout. They have 8 terminals at the bottom so I imagine that there is 1 common and 1 for each segment. I don’t think I have the pinouts for the ones you mentioned specifically :-/
Hey thanks for the datasheet above. I have a dozen of these KW-104SAU-8P displays and am dying to get them lit up.
If anyone has experience getting these to work, please reply to me or post here.
Looking to purchase some minitron display units 7 segment vacuum incandescent units.
Do you still have some, and how much are you asking
Hi Rick,
I just found your reply today, sorry.
I happen to have 7 of these displays on eBay right now.
Look up seller: coco92388 on Ebay to find them.
Good luck.
-John