Nixie Clock Nixie Clock

"A nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying numerals or other information. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode, and multiple cathodes in the shape of Arabic numerals. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and often a little mercury and/or argon, in a Penning mixture." - wikipedia

I obtained a nixie clock kit from Lithuania, from the web-site tubehobby.com. The kit included six Russian military surplus IN-14 nixie tubes and two IN-3 column separator bulbs. The user-guide for the kit can be found here (in PDF Format): NCV2.0_manual.pdf »

Here is a little flashback on how I built the nixie clock from the kit.

1. This is what was delivered with the kit:

2. The top and bottom of the logic board before starting to put the components in:

3. My 6-year old having fun helping me:



4. I slowly make progress ...




5. Putting the Nixie tubes into the display board:

Note the Russian markings at the back of the Nixies:

6. The two boards:

7. Almost there ...

8. Voila!

This video shows the staggered plates lighting up to display different digits:

Here is the Nixie Clock displaying time with Echoes playing in the background. The clock firmware displays the date between the 50th and 55th second of every minute. Visual effects performed during date display change prevents the unused cathodes of the nixie tubes from poisoning.

 

 


JavaScript DHTML Menu Powered by Milonic (License)