The kit was packed well, each tube was nicely wrapped in bubble wrap and the components were neatly packaged in small zipped baggies. Took about 4 hrs to assemble. Very easy to navigate the menu and set time. The end result looks really good! Thank you to Rob a great product!

So the first one died a mysterious electronic death that I couldn't sort out. As that was a version 3 model, it didn't have some of the new features the current (v5) model has, namely the battery. So that made buying a second a no brainer for me.

Visually it's a really interesting clock by showing the PCB and components along with the Nixie's themselves.

Now I personally loved it with the basic acrylic panels, but I decided this time to go nuts and design a new one that uses 3D printed parts with custom acrylic panels. It turned out well enough that it even gets to live upstairs with the day walkers (https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/53392-msp430-nixie-clock-enclosure).

Has been running continuously for about two years now. A beautiful piece of hardware. Would love a few more to be honest

For those interested in Nixie technology, you'll this project to be straight forward and quite educational. With great documentation, the electronics enthusiast will have no problem completing this kit. I bought two.

The instructions are fairly basic but the steps are logically grouped and it is not hard to avoid mistakes. For example, one nice touch is that the PNP transistors are packaged separately so you can't really mess that up - as long you don't dump all of the parts.

Also I highly recommend getting the optional acrylic panels for safety and appearance. 180V DC probably isn't going to be lethal but you can easily get a little buzz if you accidentally touch components on the edge of the board.


A few minor suggestions:

* There are 48 tube pins (12 * 4) necessary for the 4 Nixie tubes. And you get exactly...48 pins. It wouldn't hurt to throw in a couple of extra of the little/cheap components to account for packing errors or accidentally dropped parts.

* The Nixie tubes are a little on the dim side. Having the ability to adjust the tube brightness in software would be nice or at least a hardware option.

* A few more configuration options would be nice, such as a non-blinking separator and additional (less active) cathode poisoning prevention options.

* I realize this is explicitly a MSP430 kit but I can't help but wish there was a way to use an alternate microcontroller that supports WiFi and NTP. Maybe an option to interface via I2C?

* Providing a layout schematic would be useful. I accidentally lifted a pad on the MSP430 but fortunately it was easy enough to trace the route and replace it with a bodge wire.

* I haven't contacted the kit creator yet to ask about source code but including that in the documentation zip file would be appreciated.

* A simple 3D printed case or STL file that works with the acrylic panels to completely enclose the clock would be good addition. I might see if I can whip something up.

* The seconds appear to be based on the hard reset time. So if you're particular about the exact time, you need to remove the battery and power up the device at precisely HH:MM:00. I would have expected that changing the minutes would also reset the seconds to zero, like most clocks.