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It has software? (Score:2, Informative)
I've built Nixie clocks, and there shouldn't be any software involved at all. You can get clock ICs cheaply enough, a microprocessor is overkill for this kind of project.
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The microcontroller is an atmega168, just like what's in the Arduino but I didn't see if it was straight C or Arduino code.
LoB
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So, one component uses some code. How does that make the whole clock open source?
Here is the source [ladyada.net]. Just because you don't compile it doesn't mean it's not open source, it just means it's not open source *software*.
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That's called a schematic or circuit diagram. It isn't "the source."
It's not the source *code*.
There are "open source" beers and colas. This is in that same vein. Making a big fuss over the word "source" is a bit silly.
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Open Source has grown beyond just a description of software, it's an ideology too.
And indeed, if we were talking about Verilog or VHDL, indeed, the "schematic" might just be little different from source.
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And what if I want to add a stopwatch or countdown timer mode to it? Or make it count in an alternate base or time system?
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How can this possibly be offtopic?
Grandparent is a post saying "using that is overkill" - a direct response to the topic.
Parent is a post saying "well yes, but what if..." which is a direct response to the direct response.
It can't get any more on-topic than this! WTF!
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It can't get any more on-topic than this! WTF!
Needs more car analogies.
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Or cowbell.
Oh come on, get a clue. (Score:2, Insightful)
I had a digital watch in 1979 that could do a stopwatch and day of the week. Do you honestly think it had a programmed CPU in it? It was all hardwired TTL logic on a single chip. You can do quite a lot with hardware alone - ask the creators of Pong.
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Open source clock firmware? free
1970s era TTL clock chips? good luck finding those (and the displays they're designed to drive) on eBay...
You can do a lot with hardware alone, it's just not usually an efficient use of time, board space, power, or money anymore.
building from old parts (Score:5, Interesting)
A long time ago I redirected my child interest in destroying and rebuilding electronics to tinkering with virtual constructs.
So I shouldn't be interested in "hardware hacking"; however, too many hours of fallout, too many zombie movies and too many post apocaliptic novels have given me a degree of interest in that part of the engineering poetry.
Time to go find an open source rifle made from old car parts.
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That would probably be a Sten.
Quite neat, actually. (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, LadyAda is awesome. I really don't need to say any more than that.
I've been wanting to make something like this for a while now. A year or two ago, I bought a big box of the same old Soviet 'vacuum fluorescent indicator' tubes, but I was always having trouble working out the hardware involved, especially the power supply. Using a boost converter is a great idea which might have occurred to me if I had had any experience with them at the time. (Other projects have since taken priority)
My enclosure design wasn't quite as...ah, 'conservative' as a nice simple laser-cut plexiglass box though :) http://media.giantpachinkomachineofdoom.com/blog/2008-06/images/clockwip3.png [giantpachi...ofdoom.com]
Now I'm going to have to take another try at it! :D
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I have made a nixie clock that uses counter chips and not some microcontroller. In any case, to get power for a VFD device you probably need a transformer with 3 outputs or 3 separate transformers. You need the anode voltage (depends on the display, probably 35-70VDC), power for your chips (5-12VDC) and power for the filament (usually 3VAC, it is important that this is AC).
For my nixie clock I used two 220V/12V transformers. One takes in 220V from the outlet and transforms it to 12V (power for the chips), t
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I really like this project..
One thing I'll test (if I ever have time) if the project can be adapted to run on pinball displays..
Pinball machines in the 80ies also used this type of vacuum displays (Gottliebs had the nice blue ones like shown here), Bally/Stern/Williams had smaller red ones - 6 and 7 digits.
I have enough of these pinball displays laying around (used ones can be found cheap from parts games on ebay and even new displays are still available from pinball parts shops).. so these are probably eas
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They're not rare in Soviet Russia! Joking aside, these VFDs are not that rare. Like some kind of state-sponsored labor monster run amuck, these (and all kinds of other vacuum tubes) were produced by the trainload during the heyday of the Cold War. They can now be picked up for a few dollars on eBay from sellers in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Of course the US produced its fair share of tubes as well, but the vacuum tube era seems to have lasted much longer in Eastern Europe than here (particu
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I would love to know where they are getting that case manufactured. I'm good with the electronics side, but hopeless when it comes to making cases.
You can get PCBs manufactured cheaply in China now (Seeed Studio are good). For cases though the only real option seems to be people like Front Panel Express who only work with metal. I keep thinking about taking a basic woodworking course or something, but I have arthritis in my hands so it's not that simple.
You would think that there would be someone doing low
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Have a look at Ponoko [ponoko.com] - they're great for making one-off items, like this case, from all sorts of laser-cut materials. I'm not affiliated with Ponoko, just a happy customer. Looking at the design of the case, if it wasn't laser-cut, it should have been - a case like that would be trivial to get sorted out with the precision of laser cutting...
Cute, but how about this. (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO this [die-wuestens.de] has more geek points.
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I don't know, man. The old IV-18 tubes are really wicked looking. You have a cylindrical glass vacuum tube, and inside it is a slab of glass with 7-segment digit phosphors, shiny silver traces, and extremely tiny, thin hexagonal grids infront of each digit. So, it basically looks like a glowing blue digital readout 'suspended' in a thin glass envelope.
There's also the IV-27 which is larger and 13 digits instead of 8, and the IV-21 (I think it's 21) which is a tiny version of the IV-18.
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That's pretty neat - but, ooooh, I can feel the burn-in from here!
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IMHO this [die-wuestens.de] has more geek points.
I see your bet, and I raise you one nixie clock built in a bottle [hackaday.com].
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Not so retro (Score:2)
Looks like the clock on my mom's 15 year old oven. Also looks like the display on a 10-15 year old VCR. If a teenager could remember it being new, then it's not retro. Sorry.
Cool project though.
bad-ass! (Score:2)
That is one bad-ass looking display. I didn't even know these existed... and I can see now that I would want to use them over normal LCD or LEDs, when given the space and power to use them. That looks fantastic!
Stick a color filter over it for even more badassery!
or... (Score:4, Insightful)
You could just rip the clock out of an old VCR.
Since when are nixies "high voltage"? (Score:2)
It's been a long time since I checked, but as I recall nixies only took 100v or so.
-jcr
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I understand the standard may be different in industry.
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I generally consider "high voltage" to be any power source that would be dangerous to lick.
I draw that line at voltage that will arc through a rubber-coated canvas glove.
-jcr
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How can you accidentaly lick a live spark plug FFS???
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It's been a long time since I checked, but as I recall nixies only took 100v or so.
170V DC
"Open Source" hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that the "Open Source" moniker has any relevance to hardware projects like this. In software, the "source code" is the actual raw material that a complied application is made of. In hardware, the "source" is physical electronic components.
I guess you could call the freely-available plans and schematics "the source" but that doesn't make much sense, because without hardware components, you can't compile it into a working device. So the term doesn't really apply, especially as we've had freely available electronic schematics for decades, and nobody ever called them "open source." This terminology just seems to be a way to seem cool and trendy.
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I have seen (smart) 12 year olds build digital clocks using the relevant TTL/CMOS dividers, with
Trying to get hold of the parts is difficult (Score:2)
Back in the 80s you could walk into a Tandys (Radioshack in the states) and just buy components. Now all the Tandys are gone and Maplins has hardly any components in store - you need to mail order everything which is a bit off putting for people who just want to dabble. Well, IMO anyway.
Re:"Open Source" hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree.
RMS himself, the holy fanatic of free software, has compared swapping code to swapping recipes for cooking.
Open source and by extension free software is about unrestricted access to the instructions for making something. If this something is a computer program, a piece of hardware, a meal, a knitted sweater or a bottle rocket is irrelevant.
Granted, the term open source as understood by this community is most often applied to software. But the open source model can be successfully applied to any instructions that can be shared and improved upon. I dare you to dig a little, there is a lot more of this "open source" stuff out there than software.
Parent
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I dare you to dig a little, there is a lot more of this "open source" stuff out there than software.
I'm well aware of it, I spent my teen and pre-teen years building electronics from freely-available plans. But we never called it "open source" back then, so why start now?
Likewise, with your RMS example, nobody calls swapping recipes "open source," it's just swapping recipes, or "cooking."
Yeah , but "Open Source" is a trendy right-on term (Score:2)
at this moment in time , and goes down well with the we-hate-MS-stallman/linus/raymond[delete as applicable]-is-god fanboys which is what you need to get a story posted on slashdot.
Which brings me to the question... (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? Can nothing be done to correct this?
Over half the "female" geeks are men (Score:2, Funny)
Wheres the nuke? (Score:3, Funny)
The all tube digital clock. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not retro; it has a CPU in it. Look at this all vacuum tube digital clock [engadget.com] where all the logic is tubes. 103 tubes.
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Most people don't the skills to write.
Re:And this is worth buidling because.. ???? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a gadget that is cool (from a geek point of view), that you can make yourself (provided you have the skills, you should as a geek), that makes other geeks go "ooooooh" in envy and awe, that glows in flurescent blue (that by itself is already enough) and you dismiss it as something you wouldn't want.
Please drop your geek card in the shredder by the door on your way out, will ya?
Parent
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In Russian vacuum, Linux runs YOU.... Or something like that.
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I was confused by that also, but it appears it's the particular variety of display tube that's Russian.