We mounted one of them on a wooden sigar box and connected the anode via a large series resistance to the live wire of the 220V mains! Just by touching one of the cathodes it was possible to make the numbers glow.I think that this was the beginning of my life long fascination for these misteriously glowing tubes. They are in one word beautifull! One
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of the things that makes them so fascinating is that they are so visably a monument of a time when a revolution in electronics was taking place. On one hand they were obviously a product from the radio tube area, and on the other hand they were used to display the results from the children of the revolution, digital ICs. To me, an equally fascinating component is the 74141 NIXIE driver. What a curious component it is, designed to interface the 5V TTL world with the high voltage NIXIE tubes. Of course I could not understand everything that was in them. One of these magazines contained a description of a poor man`s NIXIE clock (right picture) which used a mechanical clock to switch the cathodes of the tubes [1]. At that time I had no clue about the working of digital ICs (I was twelve), but this was something I could understand. Over the years I built up a small collection of NIXIE tubes, always having in mind that one day I would build my own NIXIE clock. A few years ago a shared my room at work with Jacco van der Hoeven. Although Jacco is a mechanic by profession, he also likes to experiment with electronics in his spare time and therefor could understand my fascination for these glowing tubes. Somewhere in 2003 the NIXIE clock fever rose to an alarming level when I run into a bunch (50!) of old 74141 NIXIE driver ICs that were about to be thrown away together with a whole chest full of obsolete TTL ICs. There were at the...
This project fits more for custom made battery casing that can have more space to hide things inside. This switch with few alterations can be used for any other project as well but is designed based on e-bike needs! This project use a clever functionality of....
The circuit described here uses ultrasonic oscillations and operates based on the propagation velocity of these oscillations in the air. Thus, we can easily determine the distance of two points if the time within which the wave travels this distance is....
Sometimes the precious metals are hidden too deep and are not detected except with complicated devices. In many cases, however, small pieces of precious metal buried near the surface can be detected by relatively simple means. Everyone is very attractive to....
Many times for various reasons we forget or can not water the plants that we have in our homes. And many humidity sensors units just notify us with a beeping sound or with a flashing light, that the pot needs watering. But what if we are away from home? This....
The principle behind a metal detector is really very simple. Proof of this is the circuit that follows, in which it proves that the construction of a metal detector can be done in the minute, with few components that we find very easily everywhere. With the....
The sub-harmonic bass generator is a sound producing unit for guitars. The sound it produces looks very much like that of the bass guitar. The octave generator is sometimes quite unusual since it does not produce any of the usual ways of coloring the sound,....
In the past the sounding (sea bottom measurement) was done with the "bullet", that is, with a heavy lead object that the seamen plucked into the sea hung from a calibrated rope. As soon as the "bullet" reached the bottom, the depth appeared directly from the....
This Amplifier was designed to have the following specifications: Distortion less than 0.1% at full power of 100W even at 20KHz. Power has to be attributed to an extended bandwidth. The output transistors must be protected against short circuits. The power....
A series of LEDs serve to alert the gardener when plants need water. Using two conventional digital integrated LEDs and a series of LEDs, we make a very useful device for gardening. The device detects the amount of water in the pot and alerts the grower.....
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