Any Color You Like - Let's see a Nixie do that!
For LIXIE II - The #NewNixie for Arduino! (Digit Kit)
These displays really are amazing. They look like big Nixie digits but at a fraction of the cost. The pictures and videos don't do them justice. You have to see the real thing to know how impressive they are. The build quality is good. They are somewhat fragile and prone to showing fingerprints, but so are Nixie tubes.
They are quite easy to use, but you need an Arduino or a similar microcontroller to run them. You also need a way to attach wires to the 3-pin male headers on the Lixie circuit boards. I made some short 3-wire cables terminated with standard 3-pin female .1" pitch header connectors.
I got the last three Lixies from a recent batch. I have a really neat multi-color counter running, but I need six to make a clock. I am currently waiting for the next batch to be available so I can order three more.
A way to pre-order for the next production run would be nice.
Update December 14, 2017:
I got the other three Lixies I needed to make a clock. I missed getting them from the batch following my first order but managed to order fast enough to get them from the next batch. I have the clock running with the Lixies mounted on a wooden base I made using an African hardwood called padauk. Here's the URL for a Photobucket album with some pictures:
http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/mitchmarkin/library/Lixie%20Clock
It's not quite finished. The microcontroller and some switches are still mounted on a prototype board. And, yes, Lixies are difficult to photograph!
Making Lixies look good isn't very hard. They look good on their own. But as Connor said, they are parts of a project, not the finished product. They need some sort of base to mount them on and a microcontroller to drive them. You don't need to be an electronics genius to use Lixies. A bit of electronics experience is helpful, though, at least knowing how to plug jumpers onto connectors on circuit boards. You should also know a bit about loading programs onto an Arduino or an ESP8266 module. These are the "brains" of any project you want to make with Lixies.
The code for several projects, including an NTP clock, is supplied in the Software link near the bottom of the Description page. So is the C++ Lixie Library that makes displaying numbers easy in any color you like. You don't need to have much coding experience to make these projects work, but the more you know about programming an Arduino or writing C language code, the better.
The minimum parts needed for a six-digit clock are: six Lixie displays, an Arduino or similar microcontroller, a 5 volt power supply rated at 1 amp, six jumper cables with female 3-pin header connectors at each end and some sort of base to mount everything on.
I'm using an Adafruit Huzzah board for the microcontroller for my clock. It's an ESP8266 board that's Arduino compatible and has built-in WiFi to get the time from Internet servers. I have also successfully used an Arduino Uno, an ESP8266 ESP-12E board and even a little generic ESP8266 ESP-01 module. The ESP-12E board is often used for NodeMCU but it can run Arduino code, too. It has a built-in USB port so it's easier to upload programs than the Huzzah or the ESP-01, which both need a separate USB module. All can be programmed from the Arduino IDE with a suitable boards manager installed. Any Arduino can run Lixies, but the ESP8266 boards have built-in WiFi that makes it easy to display numbers from the Internet.
I modified Connor's clock code so the color of the Lixies can be varied with a potentiometer or it can gradually cycle through 256 colors on its own. This was easy using one of the functions from the Lixie Library. I also added code to display the date for a few seconds each minute and read four switches. The switches set 12 or 24-hour mode, 4 or 6 digit mode (sometimes it's distracting to see the seconds ticking by), the time zone, and Daylight Saving Time.
There is no provision to set the time and date manually since this happens automatically shortly after power up when the clock connects to the WiFi network.
Update February 20, 2018:
My Lixie clock is finally finished! I added a bunch of assembly pictures as well as a couple of the finished product to my Lixie album on Photobucket.
http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/mitchmarkin/library/Lixie%20Clock
I ended up using an ESP8266 ESP-12E board (the Lolin one) for the microcontroller. I like it because it has a built-in USB interface for programming. It can run Arduino code but the pin numbers are totally different from Arduinos.
I had trouble with the ESP8266 boards, though, because of their 3.3-volt data levels. The WS2812b LED's that Lixies use like to see 5-volt data. They sort of work with 3.3-volt data, but I had a lot of reliability issues. Lixies not turning on, wrong numbers displayed, wrong colors, multiple numbers displayed, etc. All due to bad data.
I tried using one of the bi-directional 3.3 to 5-volt converter modules that use MOSFET transistors. It didn't work. Not fast enough for the data rate. I was about to try a dedicated level shifter IC like a 74LVC245, but I ended up just using a 1N4148 diode in series with the data line followed by a 4.7 K resistor to pull the line up to 5 volts. This is working flawlessly. However, the data line running from the ESP-12E to the first Lixie is really short.
(The diode's cathode connects to the ESP-12E. The anode connects to the 4.7K and Lixie 1's DIN. The other end of the 4.7K connects to +5 volts.)
Good to see Connor has plans to ramp up Lixie production. They are impressive displays!
Response from Lixie Labs | Nov. 12, 2017
Thanks, Mitchell! It really is difficult to photograph the Lixies to match their awesome real-world look - lots of playing with ISO and shutter speeds for sure. As for pre-ordering, it's not currently possible through Tindie. They used to offer a "backorder" service a few years ago, but I'm not sure what happened to it.
In the future, I might be moving to an independent shop site for Lixies where users can order digits that are available, or pre-order if stock is currently out, with a live ETA based on current paid orders and cancellation at any time. Keeping inventory from multiple sources and countries in as a one-man operation has been really tough with the demand, so a made-to-order system might be the best option for ordering in the future. Enjoy your displays! :)
