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Published: 26 May 2010

Reader Albert Y. from Seattle, Washington sent in his latest creation. It is a scope clock based off of the Thiem-Work components.  He was helped by Eric C. both in vision and execution.  It has a similar styling with the exposed CRT and the (what appears to be) aluminum base.  Nice work!

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Published: 29 March 2010

by Bob Coggeshall / cogwheel.com

Mr. Coggeshall contacted my via the Facebook page to direct me to his website and I really wanted to show off his work.  (This is the first of two posts on his work.)

Mr. Coggeshall has developed a driver that can power up to seven B7971 tubes and is primarily driven by a computer.  One other feature that I have not seen elsewhere is that it establishes a serial connection over Bluetooth.  This enables the owner to place the device some distance from the computer without having to run cables.

from Cogwheel:

The Cogwheel model 301x  is a versatile Nixie tube clock driver board. Its features include

• Drives tubes located on a separate board to accommodate a variety of tubes and custom enclosures.
• Drive capability for up to 7 tubes with up to 14 cathodes each;
• Supports classic “0 through 9” numeric tubes as well as large segmented alpha-numeric tubes such as the B7971.
• Symbolic tubes and individual neon lights can also be driven.
• Stable, modern design utilizing surface-mount components.

On board features include:

• Flash-upgradeable processor (Microchip PIC16F877)
• Non-volatile configuration memory
• Adjustable high voltage generator fully controllable by processor.
• Non-volatile clock chip (Dallas/Maxim DS1302) with capacitor backup for maintaining time for up to 12 hours across power outages.
• RS232 Serial Interface – Can be interfaced to a GPS receiver, personal computer, or other device.
• 1 pps (pulse per second) TTL level input for incrementing time from external source (GPS receiver or other equipment).
• Cool-running 5 volt switching power regulator – Can supply up to 500ma of power to an external device such as a GPS receiver.
• Infra-red receiver interfaced to a secondary processor (Microchip PIC12F675) for control
• AC powerline frequency can be sampled by processor Runs on AC(9-12V) or DC(12-15V) power

Latest software release features include:

• Complete Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Year, Month, Day timekeeping
• Configuration via buttons, infra-red remote, or serial command interface
• Configurable synchronization source - Non-volatile real-time clock, GPS, or serial
• Configurable time increment source – Internal, 50/60 Hz AC Power, or 1 PPS input
• Optional Daylight Saving Time Correction (North American rules)
• Per-digit transition fading effect
• Smooth transition between HHMMSS and YYMMDD displays
• GPS – Display blinks if GPS does not have a fix
• GMT offset to convert GPS time to local time

Be sure to check out his site for more information.

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Published: 04 February 2010

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Published: 22 January 2010

Tim Walker sent me a link to his great Scope/CRT clock build.  The internal mechanism is based off Thiem-Work kit.  He used a DG 7-16 display and the enclosure is made out of a clear plexiglass.  One other feature that he included that I haven't seen before is the inclusion of a motion sensor that only displays the time when motion is detected.  That has to be one of the most elegant burn-in protection mechanisms I've seen.

Lastly, be sure to check out his neon work at http://timwalker.cc/.  He has a lot of cool stuff to show off.

http://timwalker.cc/scope/scope_clock/Scope_Clock_Project.html