[HN Gopher] Nixie Tubes (2015)
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Nixie Tubes (2015)
Author : xk3
Score : 128 points
Date : 2024-11-10 21:33 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (danyk.cz)
(TXT) w3m dump (danyk.cz)
| poochkoishi728 wrote:
| Iconic time clock used in the time-travel anime 'Steins;Gate'.
|
| Wikipedia says it is "considered one of the best anime series of
| all time by critics and fans alike.".
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series)]
| andreapaiola wrote:
| In the anime is for display the "distance" of the "current
| world line" from the "original" timeline in a multipath
| universe.
|
| A "divergence meter".
|
| Yes, one of the best anime. The original, not the sequels.
| J05ephu5M13r wrote:
| https://steins-gate.fandom.com/wiki/Divergence_Meter
|
| > Iconic time clock used in the time-travel anime
| 'Steins;Gate'.
|
| It's actually called a a divergence meter. But as a matter of
| interest what a-hole marked your post down into invisibility?
| gmueckl wrote:
| There is still a small company building new tubes:
| https://www.daliborfarny.com/
| tasuki wrote:
| Curious, the article author is Czech, and so is this Dalibor
| Farny. Is Czech Republic a nixie tube superpower?
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| There was a Nixie manufacturer there called "Tesla". But I
| think volume wise other countries produced more. Many you can
| find in old stock are from the former Soviet Union countries.
| tux1968 wrote:
| Their youtube channel is well worth checking out:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@daliborfarny/videos
| xanderlewis wrote:
| A website that gives off an instant impression of care and
| attention to detail.
| hulitu wrote:
| They are very expensive.
| asddubs wrote:
| They are highly specialized items under a small production
| run, not too surprising
| butterknife wrote:
| Love to see Diode Gone Wild here! One of the best YouTube
| electronics channels
|
| MORE SALT?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB62AfXLEHY
| rjh29 wrote:
| I wanted a nixie clock and there are three options:
|
| 1) Build yourself, using second-hand tubes (typically 'new old
| stock' which means Soviet-era but unused) and your own PCB or a
| kit. Lots of these kits online, but be warned it involves high
| voltages, so not a good beginner project. IN-12 tubes are small
| and easy to find, larger tubes are more expensive.
|
| 2) Pay someone else to make a hand-made one - very expensive
|
| 3) Buy a Chinese one. Some of these use real nixie tubes (add
| 'IN-12' to your search) and cost $50-ish. There are many products
| titled nixie tube that actually use LCD screens and look
| terrible.
|
| I settled on the PV electronics QTC kit and some tubes from eBay
| that were pre-soldered to QTC mounts. They can literally just be
| plugged into the kit and replaced easily if they fail.
| tecleandor wrote:
| I finally took a different path and did it with VFD. No high
| voltage, they're cheaper, and one could say VFDs and Nixies are
| family :p
|
| I took the open source project Flora-ESP8266 [0] in the IV-22
| size, changed a couple things in the BOM that weren't
| available, and ordered a bunch of pcbs. Now I have a bunch of
| extra PCBs that I could use to build extra clocks :-)
|
| I would have loved to change the PCB to use an ESP32 instead,
| because that project uses ESP8285 (something like an 8266 but a
| bit more powerful) and those are harder to come by today.
| 0: https://github.com/mcer12/Flora-ESP8266
| adrian_b wrote:
| VFDs are also nice, but for decorative purposes I like more
| the sight of gas tubes with cathodic light, like Nixies,
| where you see the light being generated in an apparently
| empty space, instead of coming from inside a solid, like in
| VFDs, CRTs, LEDs, incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps.
| asddubs wrote:
| Some VFDs do fit that bill
|
| https://www.tube-
| tester.com/sites/nixie/different/futura/fut...
| tecleandor wrote:
| True, this IV-22 modules, that are individual digits,
| look a bit more like a Nixie than the classic flat VFD
| display of an old CD player or a vending machine (of
| course, not the same):
|
| https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mcer12/Flora-
| ESP8266/main/...
|
| My idea is also painting the interior of the clock with a
| super matte black paint (Black 3.0 from Culture Hustle)
| so it looks a bit more like if the numbers were floating
| there...
| msarnoff wrote:
| Numitrons are another option; they only require 5V to light
| the segments. They have a very strange, almost steampunk
| aesthetic (though Technology Connections is not a fan...)
| Unlike Nixies or VFDs, they emit a broad spectrum of light,
| so you can put any color filter you like in front of them
| (red, green, blue)
|
| I made an alarm clock from some unusual Soviet 9-segment
| Numitrons a while ago. The code/design is in GitHub as well
| as a link to a video. https://github.com/74hc595/Numitron-
| Clock
| Analemma_ wrote:
| An additional point on 1): if you buy a DIY kit online, be
| prepared to get a package full of SMT chips, not ones that can
| be soldered by hand unless you have very stable hands. You'll
| need a reflow oven, heat gun, or some other way to get SMTs
| onto a PCB.
| LM358 wrote:
| I disagree. Most SMD components are perfectly fine to solder
| by hand. Using a good soldering station with a knife
| cartridge makes the job much easier. Same with a microscope,
| but I home I use a headband with magnifying glasses. It does
| of course take some more practice than through hole
| components and in many cases it's easier to solder them in an
| oven, but then you need solder paste and preferably a
| stencil.
|
| The only types where I'd reach for a heat gun are packages
| like TO-252 and TO-263 where the backside is soldered
| directly to a pad on the PCB, but for hobbyist purposes I
| think even that could be doable with a powerful iron and a
| large tip.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Yep, I discovered late than SMD parts were way easier to
| solder than I expected. Sometimes even easier and faster
| than thru-hole components if they aren't too small, as you
| don't have to be flipping the board back and forth all the
| time.
|
| I just bought a couple of super cheap SMD soldering
| learning kits from AliExpress and spent an afternoon or two
| practicing. They are just 1 or 2 dollars each.
|
| Those kits are just a small PCB with a bunch of SMD
| resistors and stuff you can solder. When you finish you can
| measure the resistance of the whole circuit to check if
| you've soldered them all properly or you've shorted or
| killed any of the components. Some of them have also a
| couple SOP and QFP footprint chips or even some LEDs on a
| functioning circuit, so you can power it later and see if
| it works.
|
| Edit: Corrected QFN for QFP
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Outside of QFN, DFN and BGA, I do most of my smd soldering by
| hand, no reflow (toaster) oven required.
|
| Just an iron with a suitable tip is what I have required so
| far.
| msarnoff wrote:
| 4) Salvage a broken piece of test equipment like a frequency
| counter or multimeter. If the tubes light up, swap out the
| control circuitry for an Arduino or your microcontroller of
| choice. It'll already have the high voltage DC supply and maybe
| even some 74141 decoder/driver chips. (Just don't spend a lot
| of money on something that deserves to be restored.)
| the_alchemist wrote:
| I love how Petzold's Code went over the details of switching
| segments for a clock using these tubes.
| echoangle wrote:
| Does anyone know the significance of the letters for the symbol
| tubes?
|
| > All symbols of Tesla ZM1047 (T S F N Z Y G H M X).
|
| Are those letters particularly useful?
| msarnoff wrote:
| Not sure what equipment these were used in, but
|
| X, Y, Z for a digital readout on a CNC machine
|
| M, G, T are SI prefixes
|
| S, F, N, H are units
|
| It's also likely that they have meanings in German or another
| language I'm not familiar with. Large tubes like these have
| been used in elevators, so they could be floor designations.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Apparently that's for CNC machines, so I am guessing G-code.
|
| Sources:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vacuum_tubes
|
| https://tormach.com/g-code-formatting-reference
| telecuda wrote:
| The Nixie Tube Watch I received from Kickstarter is as wonderful
| as it looks:
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944794242/timeless-ele...
| ape4 wrote:
| They wildly exceeded their funding goal
| elromulous wrote:
| Very cool. Any idea if it contains mercury?
| asddubs wrote:
| yes, IN-16 contain mercury. You want nixie tubes with
| mercury, especially for a clock, since it significantly
| prolongs their lifespan
| jaymzcampbell wrote:
| Obligatory shout out for the Techmoan Youtube channel, he loves
| these things and has had a bit of quest over the years [1] for
| new and interesting ones (and lesser alternatives). All of his
| latest ones come via a Ukrainian company, Millclock [2].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@Techmoan/search?query=nixie
|
| [2] https://millclock.com/about-us
| coggs wrote:
| There are very active technical discussions of nixies going on
| here
|
| https://groups.google.com/g/neonixie-l
| wimagguc wrote:
| Technology Connections' Alex has a great video on the subject:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGT1EvmDJh4
| asddubs wrote:
| those are numitrons, they use tungsten filament, whereas nixie
| tubes work by neon glow discharge
| peteforde wrote:
| Just to offer a potentially interesting anecdotal data point (or
| depending on your interpretation, three data points) I have had
| three IN-18 tubes running pretty much 24/7 _on the same three
| digits_ since 2008.
|
| My friends and I put it together in a box as a street address
| sign. It contains the minimum viable circuitry; there's no logic
| or surge protection of any kind. It lives plugged into an AC
| outlet and glows 342 from my bookshelf.
|
| It looks awesome. IN-18 tubes are one of the biggest available.
| If you're going to use Nixie Tubes, my $0.02 is that you should
| always go for the most impressive ones available because you only
| live once.
|
| The location is long gone, but every passing year I am more
| impressed with the longevity of these tubes. If there's a
| takeaway from this story, it's that in my lived experience,
| cycling the digits to increase longevity is almost certainly more
| mythology than necessity.
| msarnoff wrote:
| Agreed. I bought a set of IN-18s for 30USD each back in 2009,
| now they go for over $100.
|
| I finally designed and built a clock for them about 3 years
| ago, and it sits right under my main monitor. They are
| captivating. I added "tasteful" (IMHO) digit cycling effects
| and a PIR sensor to turn off the display when no one is around
| to prolong the lifetime of the tubes, but your experience with
| the longevity of your IN-18s is remarkable.
|
| I've always wondered what equipment they were originally
| designed for, given their size. Most likely military I imagine,
| or maybe public signage?
| rex_lupi wrote:
| The author has a great youtube channel - DiodeGoneWild. His
| teardowns of vintage (eg. soviet RF tubes) and contemporary (eg.
| various products of chinese ingenuity) are worth checking out.
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