What is it?

A Nixie bargraph tube IN-13 with driver PCB which includes high-voltage DC-DC and control circuit. All it needs is 5v and control signal: it can be controlled by analog voltage (0 to 5v) or by I2C. Lot includes 1 nixie tube and one driver PCB.

Why did you make it?

I wanted a small and ready to use IN-13 control circuit and power supply. It is based on cnlohr nixie driver project.

What makes it special?

It is ready to be connected to Arduino or any other MCU. No need in additional circuits

Usage

The driver can work be controlled in two ways:

1. by analog voltage on pin Vctrl from 0 to 5 volts. Here is an example how the module can be connected:

2. dititally thru I2C:

The module address is defined by A0 pin. If it is 0 (connected to GND), the address is 0x13 (7 bit address mode), if A0 is high (connected to +5V), the address is 0x14. So up to two modules can be connected to one bus.

There are 3 registers available:

UPD: Brian Pugh has developed a micropython library to control this module: https://github.com/BrianPugh/micropython-libs/blob/main/lib/in13.py https://micropython-libs-brianpugh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/libs/in13.html

Thank you, Brian!

UPD Sept 16th

New version of the firmware has several updates: 1. Update of the DC-DC for improved stability 2. Cathode current controlled by PWM signal now has compensation for external Vdd variation. 3. New registers introduced for tube min/max current calibration and i2c address setting:

The I2C address field allows to set unique address for each driver PCB. Registers 0x08-0x0b can be flashed to internal flash memory.

Procedure to flash the setting: 1. Power up the device 2. Write registers with target values 3. Write sequence of magic bytes to initiate burn: 0x0c = 0xde, 0x0d = 0xad, 0x0e = 0xbe, 0x0f = 0xef 4. If the magic sequence written correctly, the tube goes out 5. Power down the device

Now the settings are updated.