We thought about EL wire, but apart from it not forming the numerals cleanly as a few have noted, the switched off EL would be too visible when stacked in some cased 10 digits deep. 

We didn't need all 10 digits on some of the 'nixie tubes' but still added the acrylic sheets to get a uniform look, just without the LED illumination and control back to the arduino. 

Hi guys. Just stumbled across this page and I though I may be able to shed some light on the mystery 'giant nixie tubes' as I was the designer of the clock in question. 

Many of you were on the right track before dismissing the idea, the digits were in fact edge lit laser etched acrylic (side illuminating LED with an orange lighting gel). 

The clock was a custom build by the very talented team at Macgyver Models here in Sydney. 

I wanted a very unique clock for the show ('Zumbo's Just Desserts' on Network Seven) and when I pitched a nixie clock to the EP he was very excited. All I had to do then was work out how to do it!

After some research I saw a few examples of nixie-like displays using laser etched edge lit acrylic and decided this was the best approach (we considered installing small LCD screens with an animated graphic inside as a backup we fortunately didn't need).   

I sourced glass domes that are usually used for terrariums (250 dia x 500 tall), and designed the case (2400mm in length!) and display to suit. Macgyver built a prototype to test the concept and once we tried it decided it was going to work. 

Macgyver used side illuminated LED's for each 3mm acrylic panel in a stacked frame that is suspended into the glass domes. The whole system is controlled by an Arduino and electrical switches (I can't recall but these were specialised and hard to source) which turn each numeral in the stack on and off at the correct time. Some decorative mesh and blue glow in the case and down into the tubes as well as some wire mesh around the digits for the authentic nixie look and we had a functional, delicate, and expensive countdown clock to time people baking cupcakes! 

I hope that solves the mystery and answers some of your questions. 

Dan Patmore

www.danpatmore.com.au

Maybe EL wire ?

It could be EL wire... the feed wires could be thin enough to be practically invisible. The colour of the things looks very non-neon. Illumination is constant along the length. EL fits both these.

I've seen some EL wire 'alphanumeric' attempts before, and the EL wire is *always* badly formed (poor corner shaping, straight lines are wriggly lines). It's possible that either extreme care was taken in forming the EL, or each EL digit is held perfectly right with a groove in a plexiglass sheet?

Assuming it is EL, do you think it's possible to achieve such sharp corners? EG: the centre of the '3' and the top of the '1'?

Just guessing, I am not that familiar with EL wire :)

im guessing its just neon made to look like nixie

That was one of my initial thoughts too (the first was side-lit plexiglass), but I discounted neon tubes for two reasons: The corners are (appear to be) very sharp and well defined, very hard (impossible?) to do with real neon tubes, and two; there don't appear to be any lead-in or lead-out tubes.

Unfortunately it is a TV show about cooking - the clock takes a very distant second place for viewing, and is only shown a few times throughout the show (but it is not a static thing, it actually counts by the second).