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.
