Free Gerber Files - Nixie Clock

[threeneurons]

I have been selling a nixie clock kit on eBay, for some time. The board that mounts the actual nixie tubes must be hand built separately, and its not part of the kit. No such board has been made, due to  the large variety of nixie tubes available. So as not to stock bunch of boards, I'm starting to layout board artwork, that I'm letting other people turn into actual boards. You can make your own, or send them to your favorite board house. So far I've just got the one for 6 IN-14 nixie tubes. Since the arrangement of the IN-8-2 is similar, it can be made to fit, too. Look for ZIP files, in my public Google folder:

Threeneurons Public Folder

[Paolo Cravero]

Hello Michael,

thank you for sharing. I wonder if you already know which other nixie models you will design the board for? And one request: would it be possible to include in the zip file a jpg picture of the resulting board?

I do hope to design and release my own board for B5092/Z560M and alike, as well as 6x IV-3, IV-6 and IV-22 VFD's.

Thanks,

Paolo

On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 11:57 PM, 'threeneurons' via neonixie-l <neoni...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I have been selling a nixie clock kit on eBay, for some time. The board that mounts the actual nixie tubes must be hand built separately, and its not part of the kit. No such board has been made, due to  the large variety of nixie tubes available. So as not to stock bunch of boards, I'm starting to layout board artwork, that I'm letting other people turn into actual boards. You can make your own, or send them to your favorite board house. So far I've just got the one for 6 IN-14 nixie tubes. Since the arrangement of the IN-8-2 is similar, it can be made to fit, too. Look for ZIP files, in my public Google folder:

Threeneurons Public Folder

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[threeneurons]

On Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 2:20:24 PM UTC-7, Paolo Cravero wrote:

I do hope to design and release my own board for B5092/Z560M and alike, as well as 6x IV-3, IV-6 and IV-22 VFD's.

Thanks,

Paolo

Threeneurons Public Folder

--

Your welcome, Paolo.

I'll have to look into end view tubes, like the B5092. As for the VFD types, that's a whole different technology and must handled differently.

I've uploaded two more ZIP files.  One similar to the initial IN-14 board, but for the ZM1000. The other is a homemade socket for A101 dekatrons intended to be stuffed with 0.093" female Molex pins.

[Keith Moore]

Great stuff, Michael!  Thanks a whole bunch! 

- Keith 

[electrofish]

Hi
having used OSH Park before I sent the zip file off and came back with a few errors which to me, being a non developer, left me without a clue : )
So I submitted a ticket asking for assistance.  Within 24 hours a 'tweaked' zip file came back which I submitted and for 3 boards cost me $34.60.
At the current £ - $ rate which is poor at the moment £29.29 inc postage.  I may have to pay customs etc.
I could have hunted around for a UK firm but OSH Park are in my mind good and quick. To me this will be a great help when making the clock.
Thank you Michael

I have shared the OSH Park board under user name electrofish

IN14X6_OSH.zip

Take a look.  It should show the board layers and what to expect of the finished product

Hope that helps
Regards
John

[threeneurons]

There are a couple of warning messages, but the files are otherwise "clean".

Here is a free gerber file viewer, from Pentalogix:

Viewmate

[Quixotic Nixotic]

Talking of Gerber viewers, if you are on Mac OSX, from Yosemite onwards, then download the free community edition of Cuprum https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cuprum-community-edition/id1053217412?mt=12 and it will add a Quicklook plugin for Gerber files, so they preview as images right there in the finder, no need to even run the program after that. Really useful.

For online Gerber viewing from any platform, I find http://circuitpeople.com/ very useful. You can download images of the layers back to your computer at various resolutions.

John S

[gregebert]

I've used gerbv a lot; I'll check out the other viewers posted.

No matter how many times I scrub thru my layout with the PCB software, I always find things when I look at the gerber file.

Usually it's these problems:

• Silk-screen on solder area
• Incorrect solder-mask opening
• Non-perfect trace connection to pad
• Plated-thru hole where I didn't want it plated
• Non-perfect text positioning or text-size; orientation

Always generate a 1:1 hardcopy plot of your holes & silkscreen to make sure your components fit

[Quixotic Nixotic]

Many PCB manufacturers automatically reverse the silkscreen layer out of the solder-mask layer, to prevent the silkscreen printing on the solder pads.

I agree with you that checking the gerbils is always a good idea.  Ask Richard Gere. I've spotted many issues at this stage.

I've been using Elecrow a lot for boards, but they love to plate though every hole by default, unless you put the hole data specifically in separate files - a plated file called myfilename-PHT.txt and non-plated holes layer as myfilename-NPTH.txt. 

I fell foul of this on a recent board where they put minimum isolated pads on the other side to plate through to. Which was mainly OK, but in several cases they decided I meant to connect to the ground plane on the top layer as a via and plated them through to that. It was easily spotted though and I drilled the plating out and bevelled the top away for some clearance. Next time I will be a little more circumspect. I still like Elecrow. Turnaround from China to UK was ten days. I was sent a photo and shipping notice within three days. They are highly responsive and helpful in English to emails.

Below is the board in question. It has a power supply and a one or two nixie tube clock board with charlieplexed outputs - each tube has four data lines giving 12 outputs, so ten digit cathodes and two decimal points or colons are possible per tube. On a 10cm x 10cm PCB I was able to get all this and nine tube socket boards. 

Everything is working fine, I am now writing the software. The number of tubes and the designation of cathodes will be user-assignable, so the board can be used by any tube, unless it is biquinary or some other esoteric affair. There are also two PWM-ed led outputs on the board for cross-fading led effects.

More on this project once I have something up and running, if anyone is remotely interested.

John S

[gregebert]

How much extra did it cost you for the extensive milling, which I assume was there so you could breakaway the boards ? I've done a few multi-boards, but always used a cutoff wheel on my Dremel to saw them apart. I really hate doing that because of the fiberglass particulates & fumes (yeah, I wear a dust mask....)

[Quixotic Nixotic]

On 21 Oct 2016, at 22:41, gregebert wrote:

How much extra did it cost you for the extensive milling, which I assume was there so you could breakaway the boards ? I've done a few multi-boards, but always used a cutoff wheel on my Dremel to saw them apart. I really hate doing that because of the fiberglass particulates & fumes (yeah, I wear a dust mask....)

How much extra for milling? Nothing, milling is included in the price. As far as I know Elecrow is the only cheap PCB place to offer this as standard and for me it's a big bonus. Their minimum mill is 1mm, so they like a minimum slot width of 1.1mm. I worked in Imperial, so used 50mil gaps, ie 1.27mm. 

If you wish you can also use V-score snap lines free of charge, but the V-score has to go across the whole board. Any closed lines on the mechanical layer get milled out, open lines get V-scored, so combinations of both are possible, but will be rejected if the V-score does not go across the whole board.

Silkscreen on both sides is included. Ten 10cm x10cm boards cost USD $14, UK shipping was USD $8.58. Colo(u)rs are also free of charge, but the green is discounted - work that one out. Green is thus USD $14, colo(u)rs are $15.90.

I have never received less than twelve boards and the most I have received is 14, for the same price of ten. It says ten below but there were twelve in the pack.

John S