Finished restoring a TIMEON 2000, motor driven Nixie clock from 1968!

[Dekatron42]

Hi,

I found this clock on eBay some time ago, it was non-functioning when sold and unfortunately it arrived in an even worse state since it had been crushed while being shipped. It turned out to be some easy and some hard things to repair to get it up and running, one Nixie was broken and a few resistors where badly burned and one resistor had cracked! After replacing those it took some time re-adjusting the motor driven rotary switches, they look more like prototypes than anything that was sold commercially, especially the disks that spin as those are just rounded pieces of epoxy circuit boards with some soldered contacts, no nice finish at all.

I've put a short film on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GsczXtQKLE where it advances from 12:59 to 1:00, and some photos and documents are included here in this message. I just wish this clock had been a 24 hour model and not a 12 hour model!

Just as it says in the article it a lot of noise and you can't use it in your bedroom without ear plugs!

/Martin

[jb-electronics]

Hey Martin,

did you repair the leftmost Nixie tube with an Argon mixture? Impressive!

Jens

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[Dekatron42]

Nope, that's what it looked like when sold on eBay - I replaced that Nixie. It still works and shines purple instead of orange. It looks like the pip at the top of that Nixie hasn't been sealed off properly as there is a tiny white line in the center of it which could explain the different colour, some air might have leaked into the Nixie changing the gas mixture.

/Martin

[Dave Brown]

Interesting. Great restoration. The Telechron 8B01 (1934) digital clock
used a similar synchronous motor and cams etc arrangement to drive its
number drums-different mechanical arrangement of course but much the same
mechanical principles in use.
DaveB, NZ

[Dennis]

Odd critter but I like the odd ones. Very noisy yes. I've been thinking about a relay switched nixie but no where to run it. I'm sure the wife would love it. Great to see you got it going. Try it in the guest bedroom!

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[Dekatron42]

You could use reed relays, they only give off a slight "ping" noise if you hear them at all.

On Sunday, 2 February 2014 10:34:57 UTC+1, Dennis wrote:

[Nick]

Nice to see this restored - as it uses a synchronous motor, I guess its locked to 50Hz and wouldn't be incredibly accurate in the States...

There is something very comforting about the clunk of repetitive mechanical devices, like the ticking of a mechanical clock...

Any way of changing it to 24 hour by altering the mechanics?

Nice!

Nick

[Dennis]

Very true, reeds would work but I was thinking on the lines of old telephone stepper relays. Pretty easy to use just hard to find. Build the right box to quiet it down some I guess. Like an old TTY box.

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[Quixotic Nixotic]

I like it too, in its infinite clunkiness. Well done for restoring it.

I venture to suggest one looks for some nice relay-driven pinball reels, often called decagon units. They have a closed at 9 switch to pulse the next reel along, and they also have an open at zero switch, useful for resetting to 0000, a known state. There are electrical taps for the numbers already on the boards, from which to drive one's nixies.

John S

[petehand]

Not a lot of people know this, but there's a 12 position version of those pinball score units. They were made by Bally and used in their multiplier slot machines for dividing by three and four. The ones I've seen didn't have numbers printed on them so it would be easy to do 0-5 twice

[Ali Cubitt]

Hi There,

Excellent work here on restoring this one!. I have a slightly different version of this TimeOn clock. Again this was an ebay purchase and it has run well for a few years; but recently it has started to lose time approx 1 minute every10.

I used your post as guidance and took it apart and cleaned it , Mine has a slightly different set up in side in that there are no covers over the cogs (as shown in your image Cimg1183.jpg) They were just exposed on to the main board

I could not see any obvious wear to an of the parts. I hard a real trail putting it back together again so haven't disassembled again and unfortunately I lost the pictures I had taken of the mechanism (sd card issue)

Does your piece keep good time and any ideas what I might look at to try and fix seeing as you have some very good experience here!!?

Thanks Ali

[gregebert]

I must say the mechanical time-counting mechanism is ingenious (see the photos in the original posting). Unfortunately, that's the root of the problem if the clock is losing time.

My best guess is that occasionally when the tens-minutes advances, it's somehow preventing the units-minutes from fully advancing.

Reminds me of a clock I made years ago with 10-position stepper-relays (it was originally a 5-digit voltmeter with incandescent bulbs). It "worked", and was very amusing to listen to it clicking-away at the top-of-the-hour when it had to advance the tens-minutes. 12-noon was quite a show.... But the relays were not sealed, so the contacts developed surface-corrosion and made intermittent contact, which caused the clock to lose time. After 20+ years of occasional usage I finally tossed it.

[Ali Cubitt]

Thanks for the response, yes a very ingenious mechanism indeed! Not wanting to be defeated by my clock;  I completely disassembled again last night and cleaned everything again and added a little grease to the mechanical (plastic) components in an attempt to reduce the friction, all the fiddling has obviously done something as it hasn't lost a single minute this morning! I will see how I go.

[Dekatron42]

Hi Ali,

Sorry for late reply but I tried to find out what lubricants could be used that would not dissolve the plastic parts, however I have not found any definite answer. In my clock I removed the extra lubricant that was smeared across the plastic and put in a small cup and then re-used it after cleaning. The motor bearings can be lubricated with for instance sewing machine oil.

Cleaning the shafts and lubricating them again and also cleaning the contacts is usually what is needed.

What differences can you spot in your clock, is the electrical wiring the same? Is yours a 24 hour clock or 12 hour like mine?

Cheers,

Martin

[JohnK]

On the subject of lubricating plastics...

Nylon expands if it absorbs oils and greases [mineral vs vegetable ? i didn't check]. This means that certain nylon assemblies can bind.

The usual lubricant seen on plastic gears is a grease with a filler ... like the white grease used on curtain tracks [here, the easiest to source in small quantities]. I use a couple of different grades of a yellow looking grease - something with zinc oxide filler I think. It is automotive stuff. The filler slows the grease running/dripping off parts in hot weather.

 

John K.

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[Ali Cubitt]

Martin, Thanks for the response. Unfortunately my " handiwork" on the clock has not lasted and it is stuck in the 4pm hour now rotating round the 10 minutes blocks.

The clock is a 12 hour version. I will disassemble again and get some more pictures at some point. 

I will hopefully try and get it to function again! On a side note is it possible to reuse the tubes in another clock project? I would assume so somehow but I am a complete novice!

Thanks. Ali

[Instrument Resources of America]

    I've always used a silicon spray on plastics, but NEVER applied it directly via the spray can, for fear of what the propellant might do to the plastic parts. I apply the spray to a Q-Tip, then apply the Q-Tip where I want the silicon to go. Never had a problem doing it that way.       Ira.

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