Nixie Clock

[Bryce]

Hi all,
   not even sure if this can be considered "Other Retro" although the Tubes are from the early 70's. This project has been on-and-off for the last 6 months and what kept me from finishing the CPC Laptop over the Christmas break. Turned out to be a good learning experience as I rarely work with such exotic parts (that need 180VDC!!!). Wood also isn't my chosen element (understatement of the year), so that was something new for me too. The tubes are an EMC nightmare, it's a radio clock (ie: receives the time over DCF77 from the Atomic Clock). I had intended installing the receiver inside the same case, but the tubes radiate so much crap, that no receiver works within a 2 metre radius of them! So the receiver is in a seperate unit connected with 2 metres of well screened cable. Anyway, it's finished now, time to get back to CPC stuff

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

So very beautiful. But I guess it means you can only operate it in a single, shielded room?

[Bryce]

Well I certainly won't have it in my Electronics room, it's a disaster. I'd have to turn it off any time I'm repairing something.

Bryce.

[CraigsBar]

It is beautiful. A friend of mine built a similar clock based around a z80. No ram as his EPROM code used only the z80 gates to store all variables as well as the time. He has time and date support on a 6 character led 7 element led display in a box about the size of a jumbo matchbox. He uses it to this day apin his audio studio. It has been running almost non stop since about 1981. And yes I want it too, as well as Bryce's one seen here.

[CanonMan]

Well I certainly won't have it in my Electronics room, it's a disaster. I'd have to turn it off any time I'm repairing something.

Bryce.

Is it noisy just because the nixie tubes have no shielding and they are multiplexed?

I guess you used a PIC to do all the clever stuff?

[Bryce]

Yes, it's PIC based. The noise is from the DC-DC converter to raise the 12V input to 180V, which is then jumping between athe Anode and Cathode of the tubes - Perfect noise producer. There's no reasonable way to screen that (without completely covering the tubes, which kind of defeats the purpose ).

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

But there *are* transparent shielding materials out there, aren't there?

[Overflow]

Wow! very nice project, I like it!