Tindie

I received an incomplete delivery. The pin angle header screws and spacers missing.
I expect communication with the supplier.

Ted | Dec. 21, 2021

Excellent design and documentation

I have built 3 of VFD Modular Clock IV-4 kits. They are excellent gifts for giving to my friends. The design and layout of the PCB boards is excellent. The PCBs are high quality. All components are labeled. There are no layout mistakes or "bodge wires" Assembly using the step-by-step instruction is easy to follow and understand. This VFD Modular Clock IV-4 kit does require some advanced experience, since there are tiny components and soldering. Soldering the VFD tubes requires patience, and must not be rushed. Fine tips for your soldering iron are required. Also fine gauge of solder. Some solder flux (Flux Pen) helps too. Personally, the highlight of this clock is the Four Letter Words function. The clock rotates display of Time, Date, Temp, and random set of 4 Letter Words.

Peter | April 4, 2021

First soldering project - great customer service

For LED Candle

This was a great little project for a first experience with soldering. I was able to get the candle to work. I could not create the raised solder pad for the battery connection with my limited soldering experience, so I put a solder ball on the battery. I'm hoping that new kits will have that pad soldered for me, or I may be able to use a flat-tipped iron tip to make that solder pad. There are six through-holes on the board, labeled "ISP" for which there is no component with the kit. I'm curious if this is for new future functionality? I ordered three kits from Tindie, but only two were available to ship. Seller asked what to do about this and I agreed to accept two kits. Seller refunded price of one kit plus shipping, so that was great. I look forward to ordering more of these in the future.

Response from Akafugu Corporation | April 5, 2021

Thanks for the review.

The 2x3 pin header marked ISP is a programming header. It can be used to reprogram the firmware with an ISP programmer. Unless you intend to re-flash the firmware, it should be left empty.

John | Feb. 10, 2021

My first Nixie.. love it!

For Nixie Modular Clock (IN-14)

I'd often wondered how Nixie tubes would look, and tricky it would be to build a project around them - and now I know! They look really, really good - the colour of the light they produce is beautiful: warm and fuzzy. The electronics required to drive them is very different from the other CPU projects I've built. No TTL logic here, it's 180 volts to make the tubes light up! The soldering wasn't particularly tricky and some SMD components were already in place. The circuit board looked gorgeous: it was a shame to hide it in the laser-cut acrylic casing (but a good idea with those voltages around). There are LEDs to provide extra illumination, but the excellent controlling firmware lets you switch them off or cycle through didn't modes. I was worried there would be some noise involved in creating the voltages that would make it unsuitable for a bedroom clock, but it's totally silent. Overall, very glad I got the kit - looks so good on my shelf.

Neil | Dec. 12, 2020

Excellent kit and a neat little clock

A cool kit easily assembled with the comprehensive instructions provided online. Recommended.

Arrived in less than two weeks (Japan -> UK) despite warnings of postal disruption.

Viktor | Nov. 10, 2020

Amazing and original product

Great doc, great quality of components, original design.
Just a great thing for people who like to practice soldering and build something.

David | June 13, 2020

The board is damaged just when first run

HV pins should be put apart from other pins to prevent from short circuiting accidentally... Besides that, the quality of the board and parts are good!

Kamiel | Feb. 24, 2020

Kit is working great

Kit is working great. Nice 3d printed box added as link, Usefull! Would buy again! Bit slow shipping but good communication

Juma | Dec. 26, 2019

Works fantastically

For TWILCD 40x2/40x4/RGB

Works very good on the EastRising ERM4004DNS-1

Just needed to jump pin 17 a d 18 to the cathode and anode of the lcd

Anthony | Dec. 21, 2019

The very best quality clock kit

Hi'
I've purchased a quite a few few kits from Akafugu Corporation as they make very good presents for very special occasions. I'm giving this one as a wedding present housed in an Australian Iron Bark wooden enclosure and laser engraved with the couples names on it. They are of the highest quality and work perfectly. My first one is still working great after many years of running 24/7. The other clocks I build are nixies from PV electronics which are also of the same high quality.
I can highly recommend these kits
regards
Tony

Anthony | Dec. 21, 2019

Great quality kit

Hi'
I've purchased a quite a few few kits from Akafugu Corporation as they make very good presents for very special occasions. I'm giving this one to my daughter. They are of the highest quality and work perfectly. My first one is still working great after many years of running 24/7.
I can highly recommend these kits
regards
Tony

Stuart | Oct. 15, 2019

Fun to build

Very fun to build. Always verify component values to be safe. Seller was great. Very helpful with questions. Would buy from them again.

Neil | May 8, 2019

Fun to build

I enjoyed building this clock. It's got loads of functionality and with the possibility of additional shields there's plenty of room to keep on changing it up if you wanted to. I like the way the tubes solder to the board with the wires going into slots rather than through holes as this would make replacement much easier.

D R | Jan. 1, 2019

wrong item sent to me i have ordered TWILCD BUT ....

For TWILCD 40x2/40x4/RGB

I HAVE ORDERED TWILCD TWILCD 40x2/40x4 LCD BUT I 4RECIEVED TWIDISPLAY SEVEN SEGMENT I2C DRIVER.....

Response from Akafugu Corporation | Jan. 4, 2019

We are very sorry you received the wrong product.
As we have communicated via email we will send out the correct product.

Sincerely,
Karl
Akafugu Corporation

P | June 29, 2018

Alles super

Hallo zusammen
Alles super geklappt , schnell und unkompliziert. Ich bin richtig begeistert !!!!!!
Mfg Grund

Dave | March 4, 2018

looked great but....

For VFD Modular Clock IV-4 6-digit

When assembled it initially looked great. As good as the previous one I built a few months ago. This is the same basic design with 3 different display options. On the second day the display was out. I confirmed it is a problem on the main board as I swapped display boards and both display work on the good board and neither work on the new one. Documentation also had errors. Resistor color codes wrong on a few of the values. Will be digging deeper. Seemed to work until I set it to dim the display at night and it didn't turn back on. Hv is present. So I need to troubleshoot to see what is wrong.

Dave | Dec. 26, 2017

Easy to assemble and works great.

The Clock board was easy to assemble, however there are errors in the documentation that need correcting.
Resistor color codes for example. Calls for a 1K and lists the colors as brown black orange gold, when it is brown black red orange. A 10K is listed as brown black yellow gold, and it is actually brown black orange gold. I know my color codes and caught this error however a novice might miss this and install the 10K into the 1K position. Also R6 was shipped the wrong value, as the manual calls for a 0.2 ohm resistor and the only one of that size was a 43 ohm.
Other than that it worked first try. You can see the build of this on my youtube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=Huu2eYouKb4

Ihar | Sept. 4, 2017

Fun project

Built together with my son. Soldering was easy. Clock modification has documentation including pictures for all steps. Definitely recommend.

Elaine | Aug. 18, 2017

Vetinari Clock Working Well

I've not done soldering for years, but this project was very straightforward and the online instructions were exceptionally easy to follow.

Manuel | Feb. 6, 2017

Excellent little clock

This clock is simply amazing. Tiny, yet powerful and flashy.
Assembly was a breeze, with clear instructions and well packaged parts.
It worked as soon as it was powered on.
The documentation is a little bit old and not much maintained, so it is missing some newer features, but, since the source code is open source, quickly could find whatever I was missing.
Communication with seller was very good. I ordered additional shield to use with the clock.
This device is going to have a special place at home.

Mitchell | Dec. 28, 2016

Big League Success!!

For LED Candle

This product went over great as a Christmas gift for my nephew. Great intro to soldering and easy to assemble kit that ends up becoming a nice little LED candle!!

Thomas | March 29, 2016

Pretty nice

For cMoy Headphone amplifier

It's a pretty nice kit. Everything seems to be high quality. It has easy to follow instructions and didn't take long to put together. As far as function. I haven't had it long enough to really give it a test.

Teresa | April 29, 2015

Fun, delightful kit with beautiful design and documentation

I adore this clock. It is clear that a lot of obsessive detail went into its design, packing, and documentation. It's a lovely doodad that I enjoy looking at every day. Here it is with a very basic 3d-printed enclosure. Review Image

Response from Akafugu Corporation | March 9, 2016

Thanks for making the 3D printed enclosure.
Is this the same one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:800836

Daniel | Oct. 20, 2014

excellent quality, very detailed instructions

This was a pure deligt to build and to have on the desk. way more settings that one could have imagined.

Brian | July 2, 2014

Nice impressive result

Simple easy kit that produces a result that I like more the longer I have it. Battery life now coming out at a couple of months.

Brooke | Feb. 17, 2014

Great Fun

Works just as expected. Loads of fun. Great value for the money. Thanks for the product!

Jos | Jan. 17, 2014

VFD IV-4 Nixie tube kit from akafugu.jp hits the right time.

The VFD IV-4 Nixie tube kit from akafugu.jp is a cleverly designed and affordable solder-it-yourself clock project. The PCB is small to the naked eye so you need a fine tipped soldering iron (0,5 mm is ideal) and a magnifying glass comes in handy from time to time. All SMD-components are already soldered on the tightly packed and compact board.

Soldering instructions are clear and unambiguous without patronizing or beating around the bush. The clock was up-and-running first time. I had one small issue in that the clock lost some minutes per hour but this was promptly taken care of by sending a new RTC chip.

I ordered another tube shield (IV-18) and now I'm not sure which looks best: the IV-4 is able to properly display all characters from its extensive built-in library of four-letter words while the IV-18 has to do with some 'stylized' (read 'unreadable') and mixed case characters. However, the IV-18 tube has a more characters to display and its modern, clean look contrasts nicely with the IV-4 vintage touch. I think I’ll order yet another shield ...

Meanwhile - being an accuracy freak - I mounted a GPS receiver from Adafruit (Ultimate GPS Breakout) underneath the Akafugu base board. The two boards fit pin-for-pin. So, now the clock knows where it is on earth (duh) and picks up the exact time every 10 seconds.

Another tip: the brightness of each nixie tube can be tweaked by changing the value of the 51 ohm resistors one third either way: a 68 ohm resistor will decrease brightness and a 33 ohm resistor will increase brightness (tested only on the IV-shield).

Here is a hi-res picture: http://www.gysenbergs.info/photos/akafuguclockIV4.jpg

Daniel | Jan. 3, 2014

Enjoyable project.

For cMoy Headphone amplifier

PCB is laid out really easy and except for a few errors the online instructions walk you through the enitre build. Just check all your parts with the schematic. I did get sent the wrong resistors but was told that would help me out if I decided to buy from them again. Cost about 2$ including shipping to get the right ones from digi-key. If I continue using it like I have been I might hack it to plug in via USB or something. The nive volt thing gets old quick. If you've been thinking about a quick project this one is painless.

Response from Akafugu Corporation | Jan. 4, 2014

Thanks for the review, and sorry again for the component mixup.
If you send us an email with the instruction errors you found, we'll fix the page.

About running from USB:
The amplifier requires a dual supply of at least +-4V to run properly.
When running it on a 9V battery, +-4.5V is obtained by using a simple voltage splitter (using R2 and C1). Splitting the USB 5V PSU would only yield around +-2.5V, which wouldn't be enough, so to power the amp from USB additional circuitry is needed (for instance a DC-DC boost converter etc.)

Running off a 9V power adapter is possible though, but it might pick up 50/60Hz hum, so some extra filter might be needed for best results.

David | Dec. 24, 2013

A bit of fun, but not worthy of the name Vetinari

For Serial and ISP Breadboard Adapter for Atmega328P

"Lord Vetinari also has a strange clock in his waiting-room. While it does keep completely accurate time overall, it sometimes ticks and tocks out of sync (example: "tick, tock... ticktocktick, tock...") and occasionally misses a tick or tock altogether, which has the net effect of turning one's brain "into a sort of porridge". (Feet of Clay, Going Postal)." - Wikipedia

With this clock, every tick appears random, this is not the essence of a Vetinari Clock. A Vetinari Clock is designed to put you on edge, to mess with your mind, and as described in the books, ticks normally most of the time, but occasionally doesn't. I am now looking into redesigning the code, once that is complete, ill put it in a mantle clock so it looks the part too. (The clock supplied is also somewhat cheap and tacky)

Not bad for a bit of fun, but not not something for a proper Discworld fan, it lacks authenticity both in the operation(code) and build quality(of the clock).

Response from Akafugu Corporation | Dec. 26, 2013

Thanks for the review. If you make an alternative firmware, we'd love to try it out. The firmware at https://github.com/akafugu/vetinari_clock should be a good starting point. It is possible to tweak the randomness by changing around the values in the timingSequence and timingRandomisation arrays (just be sure to do it so that the clock still keeps accurate time).

We're aware that the clock movement doesn't exactly match the description in the books, but we chose it as the default anyway as it gives a nice effect, and is subtle without being so subtle that people don't notice.

About the supplied clock mechanism: This is a low-cost clock that we basically include for free in the kit. Using other clock mechanisms sometimes requires a small tweak to the source code, and thus requires a programmer.

The bit of the code that needs tweaking is:
#define ENERGISE_TIME 30

This sets the length of each pulse used to move the clock mechanism. If you try it out with a different mechanism and the second hand appears stuck, try to increase the value (to say 35), if the timer movement is very erratic, setting the value down (to 25) should help.

Randal | July 23, 2013

Great time saver

This is an excellent tool for breadboarding. This eliminates a lot of the common wiring mess and wiring errors. It lets me focus on wiring the project.

It's almost ideal however, the one thing lacking is a reset button!

Geoff | July 3, 2013

A very polished kit

Thanks for the great little kit. The construction is straightforward and fun using the very detailed and accurate instructions. The whole thing is surprisingly simple and quickly assembled too.

This is a level of professionalism all kit makers should strive for.

Thanks !

David | June 3, 2013

David Calderwood