Smartsocket for standard 10 digit Nixies?

[Dekatron42]

I've looked at the information available for Smartsockets at the Groups.io repository but only found information on multi segment tubes like B7971 and its brothers, the ZM1350 plus some IV-series of VFD-tubes and one for a Numitron - does anyone know if there were any Smartsockets made for standard 0-9 Nixies (possibly with decimal points)?

/Martin

[Richard Scales]

The purpose of the smart-socket is really to handle all the 'heavy lifting' of driving a multi-segment display with transitions and programmable characters etc. in order to display alpha numeric characters and symbols using the available segments. It would be entirely possible to create one that just drives the elements of a standard nixie tube with 0-9 and decimal points etc though a lot of it's functionality would be superfluous.

Essentially you would be putting a PIC Microcontroller in front of each tube so that you could ultimately send a simple string to display the numbers. 

To display '124600' on  string of 6 of these you would simply send '$B7M124600' to the string of smart sockets. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?

- Richard

[Richard Scales]

... and the decimal points could be controlled using a feature of the smart-socket that was originally intended for the underscore character on the B-7971 so to set decimal points on in the 'colon' positions of a string of 6 of these you would need to send  '$B7U010100' - assuming that the DP's were on the right of the main character (for example). The underscore is responded to on the next character change so send the underscore command immediately before setting the digits to display - which will set it on for the new digits.

What tubes were you thinking of driving?

- Richard

[newxito]

Another reason for a smart socket, is that you could use less wires to drive the nixies. I built a socket for the R|Z568M, so I was able to control the whole clock (6 Nixies, 4 Neons) with only 5 wires (GND, + 5V, + 170V and 2 for I2C) even over a longer distance (about 1.5 meters). After soldering the GND wire to the metal construction, all problems vanished, and the clock is now working flawless.

[Dekatron42]

Yes, driving simple Nixies and saving the number of wires needed is what I am looking for (without having to invent the wheel again).

I'd like to drive a bunch of the LL-55(X) Nixies displaying letters and also the LC513/A displaying digits in a string of perhaps 50 or so Nixies. I'd be using a few small switching PSUs so that I'd only have to run the HV line a short distance and also to keep the voltage drop down on the HV wire.

/Martin

[Marcin Saj]

If I may...
socket no.3 for LL-55(X) - https://nixietester.com/project/nixie-sockets/
drivers: https://nixietester.com/project/nixie-socket-driver/

Maybe it's something that will help you in your project.

[Dekatron42]

Nice, but they are way to big for my project as I need something that isn't wider than the Nixie itself so they could be placed very close to each other.

/Martin

[Richard Scales]

Take a look at the B-5971 Smart Socket board. They put most of the electronics 'out the back' on a board which sits perpendicular to the plane on which the tube is mounted. This allows the B-5971's to sit very close together (they are quite small). The same electronics would work for the tubes that you are talking about, you would just need a different tube socket board making up.

  

The first image is an assembled B-5971 Smart socket, the second shows three in a row, the last image is a version that I used for SP-101 7 segment displays.

The Smart-Socket software supports a chain of up to 255 devices.

- Richard

[Dekatron42]

Yes, I've been thinking about something similar to the B5971 module but I think I'll be doing a few a round circuit boards behind the Nixie stacked on top of each other and possibly use an SMD version of the processor (haven't looked into programming them yet though), and if possible one with less pins (16 or 18) as all aren't needed for a Nixie with 10 digits and a decimal point or two.

I'm thinking about using a X-Y matrix back plane for all Nixie modules so they can be connected to power and communication lines in rows with the main processor and controls connected to the back plane controlling them all.

/Martin