Did anyone ever use a neon lamp as the nonlinearelement of a distortion pedal ?

[Vivek]

Did anyone ever use a neon lamp as the nonlinear element of a distortion pedal ?

Sounds it could have mojo!

[antonis]

You'll have to focus on non-linear region with, IMHO, unpredictable result..

[R.G.]

Assuming you could home in on the nonlinear region out at the high current end, there are some sincere practical problems in doing this. Neons need a high voltage to start, then go negative resistance. I believe that chart of voltage versus current is probably after the bulb has already been turned on and fallen back into conduction. It usually takes about 90V to make the gas ionize at first, and then it falls back to a voltage limited by some external limiter. Here's a good introduction to neon bulbs.

https://www.intl-lighttech.com/instrumentation-sensor-light-sources/neon-lamps

Using this in distortion unit would seem to need a 90V+ voltage source to get them to conduct at all. Once conducting, the circuit would need some way to hold them in conduction (although a high resistance would probably do) and a way to have a suitably sized signal, probably in the 10V range.

[iainpunk]

if you want weird oscillations or other (really nasty) negative resistance artefacts, and also use at least 40V bipolar supply.

if you really want that, i think a tunnel diode is easier to use for this. i experimented with a fuzz with a tunnel diode for one clipping side, it took out a lot of volume when clipping, really abrupt, and made the tone really thin and fizzy, not in a cool way tho.

cheers, Iain