Anyone purchased one of these clocks?

[Terry S]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/314168311777

Many sellers on ebay.

Does it come with pins for the tubes?

Terry

[Richard Scales]

From the pictures I would say that it does use pin sockets therefore I would expect them to be included.

The evidence being that A) - you can just see them in the top view of the clock and B) the holes on the PCB look too small for the pins on IN-12 tubes.

... though for $25.38 including shipping - who knows what you'll end up with!

For my money - if I was looking for a pre manufactured board then I would look no further than here: https://www.nixieclock.biz/StoreMNC6.html

OK, no case, 6 digits and not IN-12 but you are getting a feature rich well designed clock from a respected supplier. He does have a kit for 4 digits of IN-12 but you would need to assemble that yourself.

- Richard

[Dan Schnur]

It looks pretty basic.  It uses a STM8 microcontroller with a ds3231 RTC, an old school method of implementing a 40 bit shift register made up the old school way (32 bits for digits, 2 extra for the colon and a few flapping in the breeze), the usb port is only there to supply power. D+ and D- (and ID) are *really* close to the ground plane if not outright shorted to it.  The buttons are on the same board as high voltage with lots of ground plainy goodness to make sure any shorts count. No idea how thick the PCB is, though they are using a larger via size, so it’s probably a thin board, or the designer got lucky…

I’d say it’s a perfect example of what not to buy.

 -Dan

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[gregebert]

I dont know how anyone could sell it for so cheap; the components cost more than 25USD. Yet, there it is.

I bought a similarly-cheap edge-lit clock last year (well, OK 38USD including shipping, and it's 6 digits). It's kept accurate time and puts on quite a light-show. 

[Dan Schnur]

As for the ones on nixieclock.biz, they look o be a light step up because of more programming ports, but it’s the same identical architure.   Perhaps a different controller, a slightly less dodgy power supply, and so on.

I’ver looked at kits and all I can find are some pretty simple ideas of what to do when I build my one clock that won’t Cath fire when I turns on.

The one I would save up for is from: https://www.daliborfarny.com/. At least it won’t burn down you house.  Or build your own .  They are not that hard to do.

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[martin martin]

I have purchased more than 4 of them,  Great gifts for the Nixie clock folks not wanting 6 digits!

~

mcve...@gmail.com

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[Terry S]

And did they include socket pins?

I'm buying this as a gift as well.

[Ian Vine]

I bought one a while back. It included pins. Worked fine. 

On 13 Dec 2022, at 22:26, Terry S <tschw...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Robert G. Schaffrath]

I have one of those that I bought two years ago. Relatively easy to assemble I believe socket pins were included. Setting the clock is annoying though.

[Terry S]

Kit arrived, came with pins, cute little clock.

[Terry S]

Robert -- I haven't installed a battery yet. Does the battery back up the time and settings?

Yes setting the time and backlight is rather twisted.

On Thursday, December 15, 2022 at 10:17:04 AM UTC-6 Robert G. Schaffrath wrote:

[Terry S]

Dan, I need to disagree with you on several counts. It's an .062 board and the vias are small. Plenty of space between D+ & D- and the ground plane, at least 10 mils. It's likely just a 2 layer board, but as someone who spent 25 years of my career designing PCBs, I find very little fault with this layout.

Traces are 6 to 8 mils except for power distribution & HV. The layout is fairly clean and well thought out. The silkscreen is very good and I found no acid traps. Trace to trace clearance looks a bit small on signal lines but it's nothing that can't be manufactured reliably today. The simple architecture is a bonus in my opinion.

He used copper pours a bit inconsistently but it's not a crime on this tiny board.

Overall it's a competent design and quite a bargain. If the code was open source I'd certainly change a few things with regard to setting time and button operation, cathode poising routine, etc. But for this price it's a great little clock and a nice gift item.

[newxito]

I never heard about acid traps... isolated copper islands, acute angles... very interesting... 

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

The battery backs up the time, not the settings. If you lose power you have to reset the 12/24 hour display mode, auto shutoff and background color settings.

Яoßəят

On Dec 23, 2022, at 2:58 PM, Terry S <tschw...@gmail.com> wrote:



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