Nixie Clocks

£69.95 / Kit

Pete from PV Electronics sent me a link to a really cool kit that he has been working on.  It is a GPS nixie clock kit that is offered in IN-8-2 or IN-14 tubes.  This is a killer little design and all of the hard work is done for you.  All you need to do is assemble it and build a nice enclosure for it (or buy the one pictured below).

Features:

• Hours, Minutes and Seconds display.
• 12 or 24 hour modes.
• Date display in DD.MM.YY or MM.DD.YY Format.
• Alarm clock feature with programmable snooze (6,9,12 or 15 minutes).
• Programmable auto display of date at end of minute.
• Programmable Blue LED backlighting. Can follow night blanking.
• Uses a Crystal Oscillator as the timebase.
• Optional DCF / WWVB / MSF / GPS Synchronisation with status indicator LED.
• Supercapacitor time backup for short power interruptions.
• Simple time setting using two buttons.
• Programmable leading zero blanking.
• Calendar function has full leap year calculation up to 2099.
• Five programmable neon colon settings (Flashing AM/PM indication, illuminated AM/PM indication, both flashing, both on, both off).
• Maintains time during setup mode, eg. When changing between Standard Time and Daylight Savings Time.
• Seconds can be reset to zero to precisely set the time.
• Programmable night time mode - tubes blanked or dimmed to extend tube life / prevent sleep disturbance.
• Separate modes for colon neons during night time mode.
• Fading digit mode or standard change of digits.
• 'Slot Machine' cathode poisoning prevention routine.
• All user preferences stored to non-volatile flash memory.
• Useful tube-test routine on cold startup.
• Night mode override with 1 button press. Customisable override period.
• LED backlights can be permanently disabled in software if you prefer, or not installed.
• All through-hole components. No difficult Surface Mount Components.
• Tubes INCLUDED with this kit.

What's Included

• 6 X IN-8-2 Nixie tubes, with 18mm digit height
• All transistors, resistors, capacitors, ICs, diodes
• 2 X Neon bulbs for hours:minutes:seconds separators
• Double sided, plated - through - hole PCB with red solder resist.
• Fully pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, with socket
• 6 X blue LEDs for tube backlights
• Piezo alarm sounder

All electronic components are provided, except power supply. WWVB / DCF / MSF / GPS receiver not included but available in the PV Electronics store.

Optional Enclosure

Links

• PV Electronics
• GPS Clock Kit