Another day, another clock

[Ben W]

Thought I would share another clock I just finished! These are IN-12's and IN-17's inside an old Numechron clock housing using a 3D printed mounting bracket.

[threeneurons]

On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 8:57:21 PM UTC-8, Ben W wrote:

Thought I would share another clock I just finished! These are IN-12's and IN-17's inside an old Numechron clock housing using a 3D printed mounting bracket.

Cute ! Are the IN-17 "colon digits" displaying the seconds ? 

[Ben W]

That's right!

[Roddy Scott]

Nice touch using the IN-17s that way, makes for interesting visuals!

[threeneurons]

My latest clock:

I decided to stick it in this thread, as opposed to creating a new one, because of some of the similarities between this clock, and the one initiating this thread,

Both use smaller nixies for the seconds, and both use a unique colon. In the case, of the original, the seconds nixies is/are(?) the colon. Not in the case of my clock. In mine the hours and minutes are IN-18s, and the seconds are much smaller Burroughs B5991 tubes. My colon is a 1/4" acrylic rod, with two rings roughened up on it, so that the light emits at those rings, forming the colon. The light comes from an orange LED at its base. The clock circuit is my standard uC clock kit, with the only real modification being the one to power an LED instead of a neon bulb.

Also, it was just a coincidence, on the common themes, between these two clocks. I was already pretty far along in the construction of my clock when the OP posted his.

My clocks

Video in action

[Nicholas Stock]

Bravo! I like the wood/gold effect...the use of the orange LED is an interesting one...didn't want to keep the neon theme there?

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[Ben W]

Great work! I think yours is a step above mine given the custom case. I'm sure we both agree the neon glow is a really elegant match with wood and brass. I love the acrylic light-pipe design for the colons. Let me ask you something, do you notice flickering on your dekatron? It looks like you are using the "pie" type animation, I'm using your kit for another clock and opted for the "processing" type because the flickering was very prevalent above 30-40 seconds counting, since I assume the neon dot has to dance around a lot to light that many positions.

[threeneurons]

On Monday, February 6, 2017 at 2:33:05 PM UTC-8, Pramanicin wrote:

Bravo! I like the wood/gold effect...the use of the orange LED is an interesting one...didn't want to keep the neon theme there?

I wanted to use the light pipe, and neons, even the brightest ones, really aren't bright enough. LEDs on the other hand can be too bright, if you run them at their recommended currents (~20mA). On this unit, the LED only has ~8mA passing thru it. 

[threeneurons]

On Monday, February 6, 2017 at 3:50:25 PM UTC-8, Ben W wrote:

.... Let me ask you something, do you notice flickering on your dekatron? It looks like you are using the "pie" type animation, I'm using your kit for another clock and opted for the "processing" type because the flickering was very prevalent above 30-40 seconds counting, since I assume the neon dot has to dance around a lot to light that many positions.

Yes, the dot has to travel, one point at a time, so when all pins are lit, the glow has to cover its maximum distance, hence the refresh rate slows down, and it does flicker. If I were to increase the clock rate to 16MHz (currently 8MHz), it will probably disappear. But to do that, I need an external clock, or xtal. One or two more IO bits that I don't have in its current incarnation.

I almost managed to get it coded inside 4K, which would allow me to use a ATmega48 chip, But that trimmed too many features. Currently the code size is about 5.5K.