4/6 digit clock

[Terry S]

Thinking about a new clock for the bedroom, I have IN-12s to use up. I'd like a design that functions as a 6 digit clock during the daytime or when the room is lit.... but blanks out the seconds digits during the night or when the room is dark. Also dims the remaining digits in the dark of course.

I also have IN-18s to use but I do want a smaller clock for the nightstand.

This seems like a reasonable design goal. Has anyone done this or something similar? What was your approach?

Terry

[gregebert]

Our bedroom clock has 8 tubes (b7971), and is PIR activated. Needless to say, it's very bright when on. I set the timeout to 100 seconds, and I dont ever recall being awakened by the display turning-on. A future project is to modify the code so it reports how many times  the PIR sensor was triggered during the night. I dont use any kind of dimming, mainly because people have reported audible noise from tubes that use PWM dimming.

Both of our kids (now grown and moved-out) built 6-tube clocks with b5092 tubes, and they never complained about the seconds ticking-away at night; they actually liked it, sort of like counting sheep, etc.

I think flip-dots would drive me crazy.....even the mechanical flip-style clocks that were prevalent in the 1970's were a bit annoying.

[alb.001 alb.001]

Some people are very sensitive to humming and ticking sounds especially at night. Back in the 1070's I bought an Accutron wrist watch with the tuning fork time base.  At night the humming was loud enough that I put it in drawer on the far side of my bedroom.   My first LED clock has always been my favourite  ( from a Radio Shack ad fir the boards. ) - totaly silent  it still works great today.

Pharma Phil.

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[Robert G. Schaffrath]

That is the problem with my MM5311 based B7971 clock that I built 40 (ugh) years ago. The multiplexing causes the tubes to whine. It did not bother me much when I was younger but as I got older and was not sleeping as soundly, the noise became bothersome. I tried changing the frequency but its stable operating frequency range is smack dab in the middle of human hearing. I leave it off most of the time now except for special occasions. I have debated looking for a direct drive B7971 clock kit and using the tubes with it. The six tubes I have installed on it are far more valuable than the rest of the clock.

Robert

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 1:55:42 PM UTC-5, philthepill wrote:

Some people are very sensitive to humming and ticking sounds especially at night. Back in the 1070's I bought an Accutron wrist watch with the tuning fork time base.  At night the humming was loud enough that I put it in drawer on the far side of my bedroom.   My first LED clock has always been my favourite  ( from a Radio Shack ad fir the boards. ) - totaly silent  it still works great today.

Pharma Phil.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: gregebert <greg...@hotmail.com>
Date: January 8, 2020 at 12:13 PM

Our bedroom clock has 8 tubes (b7971), and is PIR activated. Needless to say, it's very bright when on. I set the timeout to 100 seconds, and I dont ever recall being awakened by the display turning-on. A future project is to modify the code so it reports how many times the PIR sensor was triggered during the night. I dont use any kind of dimming, mainly because people have reported audible noise from tubes that use PWM dimming.

Both of our kids (now grown and moved-out) built 6-tube clocks with b5092 tubes, and they never complained about the seconds ticking-away at night; they actually liked it, sort of like counting sheep, etc.

I think flip-dots would drive me crazy.....even the mechanical flip-style clocks that were prevalent in the 1970's were a bit annoying.

 

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[gregebert]

About 3 years ago I gave away my extra boards (only charged for shipping) to 3 members of this forum; I just sent out a ping to see if anyone has built theirs yet. The gerbers and docs are posted to the private group ( https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/b7971-driver-board-user-group ) and you can request to join. It's direct-drive and runs from a RasPi, though any other controller can generate the simple serial protocol.

[Richard Scales]

I have a 'smart-socket' based B-7971 clock and have the boards set to 'fade' between digits - the noise is super audible - I guess I could/should change it to instant change to reduce the noise but it's only PIR triggered to is mostly off!

For bedside clock I have an IN12/IN17 clock from PV Electronics (https://www.pvelectronics.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1) which dims the tubes and colons at night. It works well for me.