[time-nuts] Best Nixie clock, ever.

David Forbes dforbes at dakotacom.net
Thu Dec 15 15:03:07 EST 2005


That is quite the nixie clock. A real labor of love.

It's interesting to note that he used none of the tube-saving tricks 
that HP used in their nixie instruments. Another nixie clock builder 
in the USA did use these tricks and ended up with a smaller, but not 
as lovely, all-tube clock:
http://www.eldocountry.com/projects/tubeclock.html

For example, HP used a 4-bit BCD counter to drive 8 neon bulbs, then 
made a BCD-to-decimal decoder from a hybrid photoresistor network to 
drive the nixie cathodes. The German fellow used tubes to do the 
BCD-to-decimal decoder.

He also didn't use phantastron divider circuits, which will divide 
frequency by ten with one tube (but only for fixed frequency, such as 
you get in a clock).

I have an old HP frequency counter that uses about 60 tubes to achieve 
a 5-digit display with A and B trigger inputs, 10 second gating 
derived from a 1 MHz crystal, etc. Its fan is rather too noisy to be 
in a clock, though.

Whatever... nixie clocks are wonderful, no matter how they're made.






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