arduino clock

[Tomas Begley]

https://www.nixieclock.biz/Store.html

I found this kit online and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with it?

it looks good though as it is fully open source so it's great for makers/hackers.

[Paolo Cravero]

Hello Tomas.

I bought one of Ian's PCB+uC bundle because I wanted to build a 6-digit clock. I've built the circuit but not the whole clock yet  (because in my case it's easier to sit the sockets in their final position and then do the wiring).

Unless you get his full kit, be warned that the PCB is packed with components and you have no tolerance on the shape/size of parts: I had to sit a resistor under the uC because I had 1/4W vs the required 1/8W (or something like that).

The code looks good and shows some advanced techniques in Arduino programming to take advantage of low-level capabilities of ATmega uC. I also reproduced the hardware and part of the software to generate HV out of PWM in another clock. Documentation is well written too.

Now, if I could only find the woodden box I am looking for...

Paolo

[Paul Andrews]

Hi

I bought one for the exact same reasons. I am very happy with it - it gave me the chance to modify the code that I had been looking for. His hardware has evolved since I bought mine, he now offers a version with the WiFi adapter built in. I bought my WiFi adapter as an add on. I strongly recommend you use the WiFi option. On my version, that is also re-programmable, it is simply an ESP01. They are not as easy to program as a regular Arduino, but only because of the hardware interface, it uses the same Arduino IDE as regular Arduino hardware. BTW the chip on the main PCB can be reprogrammed either by de-socketing it or by using an ICSP programmer. I chose to use the latter - there are good tutorials on the internet about how to turn a regular UNO into an ICSP so that you don't have to buy an actual ICSP.

I learnt a lot from this kit!

Also Ian is very responsive to questions.

[Tomas Begley]

sounds good ;)

tom