Nixie Clock Build GN-4, Proximity Sensor, GPS & Dekatron

I just wrote a long answer but I'm on the train through the Alps and the connectivity is not great, so I lost the answer. The essence of it was this:

It would be nice to keep the board, but of course it's totally up to you. It would take a bit of hacking to turn the board from a direct drive board to a multiplexed board, but there look to be enough pins on the edge connector to make it work.

The back lights are a bit of a problem, but they are anyway because of the red coating on the tubes, Only a narrow band of red is going to show up.

Even if you discard the board, I'd suggest you go with the sockets. They're nice.

mclegg wrote: Also, any ideas on the Magic Eye - responding to sound - being integrated with the clock?

In my opinion it should be a totally separate build in the same box. Magic eye tubes use different high voltages than Nixies and are typically driven by analog, not microcontroller, circuits. So there's nothing I can think of on the clock board that would contribute anything to a magic eye circuit.

There are decent magic eye "VU meter" kits out there that you can buy for a fairly reasonable price. I have one I bought from Mr. Nixie a few years ago and it's nice, but it doesn't inherently react to ambient sound. It uses line / headphone level signals from your stereo preamp or phone or whatever. So you'd have to add your own mic and simple preamp. There may be others available that have an internal mic and I just haven't seen them, as magic eyes aren't something I'm all that into.

There would be absolutely no point in using the diode and resistors on that board you have. Just use the tubes and sockets. If you pull them off the board - hook up the sockets per the clock kit documentation. If you leave them on the board bypass or jumper around the resistors and stuff. The clock kit already has the right resistors for the anodes.

As far as I know there is no 4-digit firmware for the Classic Rev. 6 at this time. Or let's say there is no official release of any. In the code repository I do see a "FirmwareV2-4Digit". That may very well work on your Rev. 6 but Ian would need to confirm.

mclegg wrote: Couple of Questions:
Would running this Rev6 kit, as just Hours: Minutes cause it any problems?
Does the Microwave Sensor need line of sight? Dont know much about these.
What is the best material to use for mounting tube sockets to? Acrylic Sheet or something?

Cheers,

Running 4 tubes with the stock 6 digit firmware more or less works. Time displays fine. Date will be missing 2 digits but if you configure the date format option so the last 2 digits are the year it's probably okay (we assume you know what year it is!). Scroll in / scramble out feature will look a bit weird because the program thinks it's scrolling across 6, not 4, digits. Where it gets a bit ugly is if you try to use the button to step through and change parameters. The parameter "menus" make use of the seconds tubes, so on only 4 tubes some necessary information can't be displayed. If you are using the WiFi interface this might not matter because you can do almost everything through the WiFi that you can do with the button / parameter menus.

Did you read my earlier post about 4 digit firmware being available? Since I posted that I verified the "Firmware V2 4 Digit" will indeed run on your Rev. 6 board. If you reflash the controller with 4 digit firmware many of the issues I just described are mitigated as much as possible.

As a bonus, with the 4 digit firmware you get 2 spare GPIO (the ones that are normally used for the 10-Sec and 1-Sec digits' anodes) that you could use to interface to a Dekatron kit.

I don't have much of an opinion on what to mount the sockets on. Something thin and sturdy obviously, and something you have the means to drill or punch all the necessary holes in. E.g. chrome plated metal would look cool but unless you have chassis punches to make the big holes you probably shouldn't attempt it.

Those microwave sensors are still rather new and people continue to experiment with them. I've played around with mine a bit and found it "sees" through most anything that isn't metal, including walls. It senses motion from all directions but is most sensitive when you face the component side of its board toward the area of interest. For example, it would be reasonable to put it inside a wood or plastic clock case, mounted with the component side facing the front of the case.