Nixie Clock

Not a nixie but....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QgeQAiSmM8

moparman76_69 wrote: Shouldn't you be able to give it an internet connection and use it to update the time for you?

Yeah, absolutely. Just a question of what else I might want it to do besides show the time and date.

I'll have to watch that video later, Youtube is blocked at work. =[

Trying to figure out the right HV power supply. Not gonna lie, high voltage DC is a little intimidating, and I don't really want to trust my hobby-level EE skills to design my own power supply. I may give this one a shot, looks like they'll at least sell me a PCB. I'm comfortable populating it, just not designing one from scratch.

http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/power/027/

I've built a bunch of high voltage AC to DC power supplies for tube amps. It's not bad. But I use heavy transformers which can get a bit expensive compared to a SMPS. Although a nice transformer and some canned caps kind of round off the vintage vacuum tube look.

DIY Vacuum Tube Power supply design article

I bought mine premade for my first one, mainly because soldering the controller chip was a bit intimidating at the time; my eyes aren't what they once were. I've since designed built a few for different things. They're not that hard to do, but it sure was nice knowing the power supply side was taken care of at first and so limiting where I had to look for problems. I wanted to get something at least good enough to test the tubes fast so I could check if they worked (one didn't on a few digits and I had to get a replacement sent from Russia).

The maxim 1771 sis pretty nice to work with, but seems to come and go availability-wise on digikey/mouser/etc., so make sure to grab one (or a few) if they're available. The documentation on that chip is very good and pretty much gives you everything you need to know if you do want to just do your own. http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX1771.pdf

For a bit of background on on how DC-DC Boost converters do their thing, check out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7t1Mpu7s4

unevolved wrote: I think I'm going to make a Nixie clock. I've been teaching myself the Arduino flavor of C, and I've always thought these things were awesome looking. I ordered a set of 6 IN-14s off eBay from Ukraine, but I haven't done anything with them yet. I'm thinking about using an LED under each number to give it a nice contrasting glow, kind of like this: Anyone ever done one of these before?

I never knew that this existed. Now I want one. Have no interest in rolling my own, and my wife was asking for a gift for me.

Any idea where to get a premade one?

I quite like the Nixie watch.

keethrax wrote: I bought mine premade for my first one, mainly because soldering the controller chip was a bit intimidating at the time; my eyes aren't what they once were. I've since designed built a few for different things. They're not that hard to do, but it sure was nice knowing the power supply side was taken care of at first and so limiting where I had to look for problems. I wanted to get something at least good enough to test the tubes fast so I could check if they worked (one didn't on a few digits and I had to get a replacement sent from Russia). The maxim 1771 sis pretty nice to work with, but seems to come and go availability-wise on digikey/mouser/etc., so make sure to grab one (or a few) if they're available. The documentation on that chip is very good and pretty much gives you everything you need to know if you do want to just do your own. http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX1771.pdf For a bit of background on on how DC-DC Boost converters do their thing, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7t1Mpu7s4

I sure wouldn't mind buying an off-the-shelf one, but a premade board is the next best thing. I've used MAX devices before and been happy with them, so I feel pretty good about this one.

Dusterbd13 wrote: I never knew that this existed. Now I want one. Have no interest in rolling my own, and my wife was asking for a gift for me. Any idea where to get a premade one?

I believe you can get some kits at a few places online. I'm sure someone sells complete ones. Probably won't be cheap, I'm looking at just under $200 to make mine myself by the time I buy everything.

Damn, they're out of the PCBs. I wonder how much it would cost to get a handful of those made? Can't be THAT much, but I don't want to order 100.

I've long wanted a Nixie Tube clock... it's one of those things I WILL eventually get, but just not yet...

unevolved wrote: Damn, they're out of the PCBs. I wonder how much it would cost to get a handful of those made? Can't be THAT much, but I don't want to order 100.

I linked to the assembled one I used back a bit.

Wound up buying a power supply off eBay from user "electro-resales" that showed up in like 3 days and works great. I've got a little bit of downtime between jobs, so I decided to play with this project a little bit.

Got a little test setup working. Thanks again for the drivers, keethrax, they work great! Now to scale up to all six!

Here's a short video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bmg5nv6ksa9m4od/MVI_0128.MOV?dl=0

unevolved wrote: Got a little test setup working. Thanks again for the drivers, keethrax, they work great! Now to scale up to all six!

Looks great! I've been pretty busy, still need to put the finishing touches on my board design and then send it off to one of the various cheap pcb places. At this rate, you'll be done before me.

"I've been crafting such clocks since 2014. If you need any help with your nixie clock, feel free to ask me. Can I seize an occasion and post the photos of my crafted clocks? P.S. all photos are mine and real. If you need any, BTW, I can give you a discount, as a forum member, just write me the [canoe]

Are you also a crafter of fine quality canoes?

Too bad a boat builder had to chime in.

I was finding this fascinating!

You can find great premade nixie tube clocks somewhere (link removed)