Welcome to the Official OcUK Electronics stuff thread!
If you've got a query about something electronic or electrical, want to learn something new or interesting or just feel like looking these strange wizened electronics nutters, i hope that you'll find what you're looking for here!
The Thread started as a thread about Nixie Clocks and concentrates on such for the first ~420 posts or so (six pages if you're on the manly 80PPP setting)
Original OP begins:
I've been wanting one of these for years now, ever since i saw one in a book in about 1997 (it was a 1970's Longines desk-clock, very retro!) and reinforced by seeing them on http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/count.html
I tried to build one from scratch while at Uni with the resources of the electrical engineering lab, but due to numerous setbacks and delays in getting components (3 months to get an IRF740!) i never ended up finishing, and my Russian IN-8-2 Tubes sat languishing in their Melz-Vacuum-Tube-Factory boxes for more than two years.
Until now, when i noticed that a webshop was selling professionally made PCB's and component sets for 6-digit Nixie clocks designed for my particular tubes, i decided to go for broke and buy a kit.
Starting at 1:30AM on sunday morning (after a night out in Camden no less!) i finished up with this at about 10AM:
Component-side. the design uses solid-state (transformerless) DC-DC switching to boost the 12V DC-in to the 170V DC that the tubes need to strike.
This is what it looks like when it's on
The Neon dot between the 2nd and 3rd digits is the AM-indicator. there's another one between the 4th and 5th that indicates PM.
replaced image with one showing better colours, it was too yellow before
And what it looks like with a bit more Ambient illumination:
Top-down view of the soldering:
Semi-detail of the soldering:
Detail-detail of the soldering:
Those are 1/4w miniature resistors, and those solder-joints are less than 1mm in diameter.
Considering it's been over a year since i did any soldering last, and i was using a gas-powered Iron and not a temperature-controlled desk-iron, i'm very pleased with the quality of the soldering
To be honest, this wasn't an especially difficult project, simply solder on the designated components into their silkscreened locations. soldering the 'tubes was the only hard part, and the only instance where i had to make a repair because the soldering iron went haywire and incinerated a solder-pad for the 1-digit on the first nixie
Here's a lousy quality video of the clock in action:
The tubes are "new" old stock, manufactured in Moscow in February 1992, so while they "burn in" i'm having the clock run the "slot-machine-routine" every minute, which cycles rapidly through all the digits to prevent Cathode-degradation.
After a few more days i'll set it to hourly because it's a bit annoying.
The clock shows the date for five seconds every minute, but i might turn that off too, the settings menu is rather comprehensive considering that it's a simple clock. everything is controlled by a PIC16F1936 8-Bit microcontroller which derives the timebase from a 32.768kHz crystal oscillator, so in it's current state it should be accurate to at least a couple of seconds a day.
It also has the option to update the time from either a serial GPS unit or a radio-time-signal Antenna. i'll probably go for the GPS option some time soon.
So, what do you guys think?
If you've got a query about something electronic or electrical, want to learn something new or interesting or just feel like looking these strange wizened electronics nutters, i hope that you'll find what you're looking for here!
The Thread started as a thread about Nixie Clocks and concentrates on such for the first ~420 posts or so (six pages if you're on the manly 80PPP setting
)Original OP begins:
I've been wanting one of these for years now, ever since i saw one in a book in about 1997 (it was a 1970's Longines desk-clock, very retro!) and reinforced by seeing them on http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/count.html
I tried to build one from scratch while at Uni with the resources of the electrical engineering lab, but due to numerous setbacks and delays in getting components (3 months to get an IRF740!) i never ended up finishing, and my Russian IN-8-2 Tubes sat languishing in their Melz-Vacuum-Tube-Factory boxes for more than two years.
Until now, when i noticed that a webshop was selling professionally made PCB's and component sets for 6-digit Nixie clocks designed for my particular tubes, i decided to go for broke and buy a kit.
Starting at 1:30AM on sunday morning (after a night out in Camden no less!) i finished up with this at about 10AM:
Component-side. the design uses solid-state (transformerless) DC-DC switching to boost the 12V DC-in to the 170V DC that the tubes need to strike.
This is what it looks like when it's on
The Neon dot between the 2nd and 3rd digits is the AM-indicator. there's another one between the 4th and 5th that indicates PM.
replaced image with one showing better colours, it was too yellow before
And what it looks like with a bit more Ambient illumination:
Top-down view of the soldering:
Semi-detail of the soldering:
Detail-detail of the soldering:
Those are 1/4w miniature resistors, and those solder-joints are less than 1mm in diameter.
Considering it's been over a year since i did any soldering last, and i was using a gas-powered Iron and not a temperature-controlled desk-iron, i'm very pleased with the quality of the soldering
To be honest, this wasn't an especially difficult project, simply solder on the designated components into their silkscreened locations. soldering the 'tubes was the only hard part, and the only instance where i had to make a repair because the soldering iron went haywire and incinerated a solder-pad for the 1-digit on the first nixie
Here's a lousy quality video of the clock in action:
The tubes are "new" old stock, manufactured in Moscow in February 1992, so while they "burn in" i'm having the clock run the "slot-machine-routine" every minute, which cycles rapidly through all the digits to prevent Cathode-degradation.
After a few more days i'll set it to hourly because it's a bit annoying.
The clock shows the date for five seconds every minute, but i might turn that off too, the settings menu is rather comprehensive considering that it's a simple clock. everything is controlled by a PIC16F1936 8-Bit microcontroller which derives the timebase from a 32.768kHz crystal oscillator, so in it's current state it should be accurate to at least a couple of seconds a day.
It also has the option to update the time from either a serial GPS unit or a radio-time-signal Antenna. i'll probably go for the GPS option some time soon.
So, what do you guys think?
Last edited:
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