Can you run a nixie clock on a CR1216 button cell battery?

[Michel]

I wanted to try this out for quite a while but didn't have a spare
module available to actually try this out. It might sound an
impossible thing to do but yes, it can actually work! A nixie watch
running on a 3V CR1216 battery. The tubes are obviously not very
bright, but it is clear the whole circuit runs, keeps time and can
display this on nixie tubes.

Total power consumed by the circuit is about 13.5mW (2.4V @ 5.6mA);
tube voltage is 125V average and current approximately 30uA
(calculated) per tube. Close to nothing, but obviously just enough to
display the digits.

I shot a short video that I uploaded to youtube. For some reason the
aspect ratio is a bit screwed up, but that is a minor detail.
http://youtu.be/-r2oderqCOw

Michel

[Terry S]

I imagine the blue LEDs are drawing a good hunk of that current.
Disable those and you'd have more impressive run times.

[Imbanon]

I love it. Also, what a great way to connect these button cells for testing!
But I would sacrifice a number of run times for a bit longer on time.

[Michel]

The blue LEDs don't take much at all. I have wired those in series
with the anode of the nixie tube so the current through the LEDs is
the same as the current through the tube. The voltage across 3 blue
LEDs is probably 6V in total, so the actual supplied high voltage is
probably 131V or thereabouts. This means the tubes consume less than
5% of the total power.

[Michel]

As David mentioned somewhere else, it is not useful to use this button
cell battery to power a nixie watch because the battery can only
supply a very low current so the tubes are quite dim. For sure you
won't be able to read the time when you're outside. This little
demonstration is only to show the watch is very efficient which means
a very large chunk of the battery will be converted into tube power
rather than heat and this by itself results in very bright tubes that
are easy to read when you're outside.

[Michel]

>This means the tubes consume less than 5% of the total power.

.... correction, of course this should have been the LEDs consume less
than 5% of total power.......