Nixie or EL fake?

[Jon Davies]

Hi All,

I quite fancied buying a set of six Nixie tubes and drivers from somewhere (anywhere) and associated drivers.  It proves to be either expensive [Nixie route] or a time-sink [EL fake version assembly].  The alternative EL wire route seems an OK compromise albeit time-consuming, but I dread the rather fidgety cutting/stripping/soldering part for each length of EL wire.

Cost-wise, here is the run-down:

Nixies and drivers: £~100

EL wire and supporting parts: £~40

I did find a six-tube Nixie clock (via a colleague) on Etsy for about £80, but I loathe to destroy a nicely made product for my own project.

If anyone knows a few good Nixie sites with hardware at a more reasonable cost (say £60 for six Nixies and all the needed driver bits), then please share!

Also, if anyone has top tips/advice/recommendations regarding the EL option, also please share.  I had a bit of a rummage around the Instructables site and found a few good ones for assembling fake Nixies and also for guides on cutting/stripping/soldering EL wire.

Thanks :)

Jon.

[David Pye]

Does this interest?

http://hackaday.com/2015/04/18/mike-illuminates-us-on-led-filaments/

FWIW B&Q are selling those bulbs...

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[Iain Yarnall]

Clas Ohlsen is handier and sells bulbs like that too!!

Cheers,

Iain.

[Alistair MacDonald]

Oddly I watched a YouTube video of someone talking about the LED strips from bulbs just recently. You can get them for 35p each from my favourite Chinese supplier.

Also for original tubes I met the chap from http://www.pvelectronics.co.uk/ at a maker fair long ago. They lived in Bolden at the time but his contact address has changed so they might have moved.

  Alistair

[Jon Davies]

Hi Alistair, I think the YouTube clip might be the same one available via the Hackaday link that DP has specified above.  The video is from Mike's Electric Stuff YouTube channel.  Good guy too!  I like his videos - very informative.

Glad you also remember the Nixie Tubes guy that was at a Maker Faire a couple of years ago.  I couldn't remember myself.

[Jon Davies]

I decided to go for the genuine article.  Nixie tubes are on their way to me for Perma-Proto HAT build night :D

[Jon Davies]

Woo they're here :)

[Jon Davies]

Our Nixie pal from pvelectronics.co.uk has surfaced again!!!  He's had a mention on Peter Sripol's YouTube channel!!!  (...well, at least in the description...)

Here's the video in question:

https://youtu.be/JtvvA4Pcw80

This is where I thought things looked mighty familiar...

https://youtu.be/JtvvA4Pcw80?t=1m42s

...and here's Peter's beautifully finished handiwork:

https://youtu.be/JtvvA4Pcw80?t=9m24s

I originally found out about Peter Sripol from the Flite Test YouTube channel, where he did a few months (or was it a year?) as (I think) and Intern.  He's a very good Maker; I think we can all be quite nicely inspired from his videos.

On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 at 14:33 Jon Davies <jon.d...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Cheers,

Jon.