Someone once said that there is more to be learned from listening than talking. I like to use this as my excuse for being (mostly) a lurker. I have built several different types of clocks, including a Numitron based clock which was featured a while back in the Nuts and Volts magazine, and made available as a kit. I like old electronics, so many tubes are included in my (fairly large) inventory of “things”. I hyphenated that word since my wife calls it entirely something different. I was educated as an electronics engineer (back when transistors were just a curiosity…..) but ended up in mechanical engineering as a profession. I suppose that was good at some level, since not everyone likes their job and hobby to be the same. I do lament the lackluster interest the younger generation seems to have for the “basics”, they seem much happier to plug a fruity board into a shield, load a prebuilt software library, and call it a project. Some would not know the difference between a Volt and an Amp.
Anyhow, I am (mostly) just a retired and lurking Old Phart……
Bill van Dijk
From: neonixie-l [mailto:neoni...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 11:03 AM
To: neonixie-l <neoni...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [neonixie-l] Welcome & please introduce yourself!
Ladies & Gentlemen,,,
We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Welcome, one and all to this great community!
Nick
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Ladies & Gentlemen,,,We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Welcome, one and all to this great community!Nick
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I’m more of a consumer of the talents on display in the group. My background is EE engineer that spent most of the career in technical sales with 25 years in semiconductors (Texas Instruments, Signetics, Mitsubishi). Today I do tech support for some engineering design software and manage a small network of 30 computers and a server. Otherwise, my working days are coming to an end. Nixies and clocks are an expensive hobby but I’ve met some really brilliant people all over the world doing it.
My love of nixies goes back to a senior college project to design something for use around the home. I had to do this as a graduation requirement for my college advisor and document starting from concept to demonstration of a final product. I bought some B7971’s (two for $7.95) from a magazine ad by Burnstein-Applebee along with a bunch of TTL logic chips and some perfboard. Back then, software was on punchcards with a mainframe, so the clock logic was lots of gates, flops and counters. I quickly figured out that a 15 segment display had the added joy of coming up with a font logic and lots more transistors for the breadboard, so I switched to a real “nixie” CK8754 (NL-840) and built the clock with newly released SN74141 outputs, point to point wiring and no sockets. Along with a filament transformer and a crude voltage doubler, my dorm room clock ran reliably for another 35 years before one of the HV caps in the doubler circuit decided to dry out, catch fire and try to burn the house down. I learned a lot about the value of no mains in the clock housing. I also learned that a well designed nixie could run for a LONG time.
Today I build and modify kits and complain about firmware and I always manage to find bugs somewhere. I finally got to use those B7971’s that were sitting in storage since the early 70’s! I don’t do software but still get the urge for design so most of my “enhancements” are small. The thing that still fascinates me is the amazing nixie tube in all of its variations. There is no substitute for the soft glow of a cross-fading PWM controlled nixie. I’m thrilled to see people like Dalibor completely reinvent the art of the nixie and all of the really talented folks around the world that have designed some really beautiful kits. There is SO much more possible with processors and the FET technology that was not around when I was starting. Vacuum tubes, BJT, and early TTL were the black magic of my college experience and PCB manufacturing with surface mount is light years ahead of the stuff of the 60’s.
Thanks for keeping the group going and for some of the incredible sharing of concept and design.
Jeff Walton
From: neonixie-l [mailto:neoni...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 10:03 AM
To: neonixie-l
Subject: [neonixie-l] Welcome & please introduce yourself!
Ladies & Gentlemen,,,
We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Welcome, one and all to this great community!
Nick
--
Hi all,
Hi Yall,
Welcome to the list of of the new folks who are lurking or not. I hope yall get as much satisfaction from it as I do!
I'm Joe Croft, I post some on this list but am not super active. I am a S/W enginerr by day and a small electronics hobbyist, clock collector and nixie nut by night. Being unschooled, at least formally, I found it was much easier to make money programming than as a production technician. I still love the smell of rosin and the feal of a good solder joint.
As I have told the story before, my intersest and love for electronics and neon glow lamps started when I was 7 with my dad's nothing boxes. Not to mention the 90volt batteries he used to power them with. My brother tought us to lick the fingers on both hands and touch the contects. He was a sick brother.
My job finally turned to completely S/W in my 40s. No more wiring up equipment in the lab for testing my code or soldering wires to pins to see what the code was doing. No more smell of rosin. That's what started my home hobby of playing with electronics at home. It also ended my foray into writing larger programs at home.
That change led me to build my first nixies clock, the NixieNeon. I didn't want just another processor tied to those wonderful glowing digits. I wanted the clock mechanics to match the age of the technology tubes. After some digging I found neon bulb ring counters and I was off running!
Now 9 years later, the NixieNon kits are still selling and I've come out with a second kit. The NixieStar. This kit does use a 8 bit processor and the IN-13 or IN-9 tubes. I also put my CNC machine to good use and created a wood 'case' for it. My hope was to create a clock that the wives of geeky husbands would like ;)
My clock site is http://www.nixieneon.com. On it I have various information on Nixie tubes and other stuff as well as pictures and videos of my dad's nothing box that started it all. You can also check out the kits and buy one if you are so moved.
-joe
Ladies & Gentlemen,,,We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Welcome, one and all to this great community!Nick
On Thursday, 20 September 2018 01:03:23 UTC+10, neonixie-l wrote:Ladies & Gentlemen,,,We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!Even existing members (there are over 1,000) could chip in - there's some great stuff around...Welcome, one and all to this great community!Nick
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Even existing members (there are over 1,000) could chip in - there's some great stuff around...
Hey Pete,
I am new to the site and like you just watching at least for now. I actually joined because I am working on a “Steam Punk” espresso machine, and I wanted, as much as possible the display electronics to be visible inside a glass dome. But I am about as inexperienced electronics engineer as you find and I am looking for someone to build those parts for me. Might that be you?
Best
John
From: petehand
Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 12:02 AM
To: neonixie-l
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Like these?
Yes but to go on stalks inside the glass dome.
John
From: petehand
Sent: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 1:10 PM
To: neonixie-l
Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Welcome & please introduce yourself!
Like these?
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Like these?
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Ladies & Gentlemen,,,We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Welcome, one and all to this great community!Nick
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Ladies & Gentlemen,,,We are getting a steady stream of new members - it'd be great if, instead of just lurking, you could introduce yourselves with a bit of detail about your interests, what you've built or intend to build/dream of building. Even what gets you up the morning and makes you smile!
Even existing members (there are over 1,000) could chip in - there's some great stuff around...
SPI.begin(); //SPI.setDataMode (SPI_MODE3); // Mode 3 SPISPI.setClockDivider(SPI_CLOCK_DIV128); /In loop:To write data:Write a byteSPI.transfer(iTmp);Lock data:digitalWrite(LEpin, HIGH);digitalWrite(LEpin, LOW);
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Like these?
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<Auto Generated Inline Image 1>
<Auto Generated Inline Image 2>
could you send these images as jpeg's I did not see anything when I downloaded them
thanks Phil
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Both are active...
Nick
While I freely accept that I am very much a novice in this area, and seeing some of the exquisitely designed and built examples seen on You Tube and here within this group, I hope that through the knowledge and advise from the group's members I can aspire to such devices.
Currently I have completed two clocks, the first a kit based IN-14 six tube multiplex unit, the second an Arduino Mega based direct drive IN-8-2 six tube clock. I am working on a third clock, again Arduino Mega based which has two Arduino Mega boards which support six IN-18, six IN-12A, and two IN-15A Nixie tubes photos to follow.
I look forward to further involvment with this group and the undoubted benefits and help its members can provide.
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<gabel.jpg>
The Art Deco Gabel Kuro jukebox
<kuro.jpg>--
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John,
I can't see where such a lamp would have been used in the jukebox
that you pictured. There are no windows apparent on the front of
the box that you showed.
From the look of it, I suspect that the lamp is a gas discharge tube that would have illuminated phosphor painted on the metal electrodes, much like an Aerolux bulb of the same era.
I have an 18" long, 1.25" diameter tubular lamp likely from the
same era with metal electrodes inside that spell out "Merry
Christmas" and light up in orange-red and green phosphors. It
runs in a conventional fluorescent tube fixture.
Dave
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On 20 Apr 2019, at 17:41, jb-electronics <webm...@jb-electronics.de> wrote:
Fascinating! Does it still have neon? You could hold it to a plasma globe to see. If it has been sold it would be great to get in touch with the buyer. Can you find out?
Cheers
Jens
On 2019-04-20 7:28 a.m., 【ツ】John Smout wrote:
I came across this rare lamp for sale today - the guy wants £500 GBP. Someone is already in discussion with the seller, so I expect it has sold. I am not sure if it is neon or not, but I suspect so.
The John Gabel Manufacturing Co. had the distinction of having manufactured the first true jukebox in 1906. Also they made the first light up jukebox in 1936, the Starlight. Their last jukebox was the now extremely rare Kuro of 1940. I think two examples survive, one of which was imported into Holland from the US.
The lamp
<gabel.jpg>
The Art Deco Gabel Kuro jukebox
<kuro.jpg>
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Hello everybody….My name is Bill and I am a recovering horologist…..
Who do I think I’m fooling?? I’s sitting here with a prototype Nixie clock on the desk and I am writing and testing code right now.
My story goes back 49 years to the summer of 1970. A brilliant (his words) college freshman is taking what he has learned from his Guru, Don Lancaster and his RTL cookbook and wants to build the digital clock he wrote about as his high school senior project. He is ordering parts from Newark, Kierulff, Elmar and Brill. He has 6 National NL-5750 tubes ($6.75 each), a power transformer from Southwest Technical Products, 6 Vector VIP plug-in proto boards for a double handful of Motorola MC7xxP RTL logic gates and 2N3877 transistors. The clock uses a 60Hz line time base and front panel switches to do the setting. A thumbwheel switch is used to select the alarm time (only 1 minute, no snooze). After about 2 months of build, test, fix, fry, rebuild I had a 6 digit Nixie clock!! I got a lot of practical experience such as “walking ring counters have 2 stable count sequences” and “RTL is very sensitive to glitches”. But it worked and it was all my design. Being an EE student, he naturally wrote up the design for a class paper and brought in the finished unit.
I picked up a few degrees and went to work at Shugart Associates building testers for the hot product, the 8 inch, 10MB hard drive. I stayed around hard drives, going to Quantum and then to Adaptec in 1981. Had a few failed startups, back to Adaptec and was a committee rat for a while. Went to Palm in 2000, was laid off, worked for Woz at his startup called Wheels of Zeus (WOZ) for a few years and setup my own consulting company, BillCo Labs (catchy name huh?). Now I work on things and contracts that I enjoy. Mainly hardware design, but also working with ME and programmers.
I am very good with OrCad, OK with Allegro and tend to write my programs in assembly language (I did warn you that I am old).
In 2015, seeing all of the Russian Nixie tubes available, I decided to do my own design based on the 8051 processor from Silicon Labs. A friend and I kicked features back and forth without real adult supervision so we ended up with a vast concept with only a half-vast commitment. The unit worked and has been running in my living room for 4 years. After the running question of “how’s the clock coming?” I dove back into the design. It is now on the Mark II, rev 2.2 version.
I have a lot of “down level” bare fabs and would be willing to supply to anyone who is interested. In addition all of my designs are open source with the schematic, PBC and code being freely available to any interested persons. This is not a business for me and my wife would be happy to clear out some junk. Also, questionable answers are a specialty of mine.
I will write up the information on the current design in a post in the main section to see if there is any interest.
-Bill-
I've got some "elektronika" clocks I've imported from Russia. Interesting bits of kit.
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I find your group in searching for a schematic of my Nixichron because today it is not working anymore :(I will create a post about my problem and I hope to find replies to help me to repare it.