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2016 Update

A project log for Nixie and Numitron Clock

Combining the retro awesomeness of Nixie tubes and Numitrons to make one cool clock.

charles-ahrensCharles Ahrens 02/29/2016 at 01:310 Comments

After my last update, I moved back across the country and started my next year of school. The clock sat on my shelf, still wrapped in plastic from when I moved it, and remained untouched for 4 months. Only in December did I finally get enough time to pick it up and resume work on it. As of now, I have completed the wiring of all the tube sockets, but I am having difficulties with the anode switching circuit for each tube. I can get one tube at a time to light if I have the power supply directly connected to its anode, but attempting to have high voltage transistors in a darlington bridge as I designed is not working. I will need to figure out a slightly different plan. I think at this point I will try a few more transistor circuits and if those don't work, I will have to desolder all of the tube sockets and switch to the 74141 chips that are meant for standard Nixies. Unfortunately, these chips would not allow me to use the commas in the tubes, and I really want to keep that functionality.

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