Hello David, It is quite interesting but I came across your website while searching for a custom watch case for my domino watch, I think I sent you an email about that, or maybe I didn't actually send it out. At first I was quite interested in the nixie watch, I thought it was a nice concept and actually wanted to order one. That was until I read the story about battery efficiency and opening up the case to change the time. You wrote somewhere that it was difficult to achieve a better than 50% efficiency with off the shelve components, which is true, but it is not an off the shelve watch so why would you use off the shelve components? Another thing is that it was very big and I remember reading somewhere that someone called it a "hockey puck on a strap" which pretty much described how I looked at it. So I decided not to buy it but just see if I could make something better myself.
While designing my domino watch, you stumble across issues that you would never worry about if the circuit wasn't battery powered, and it is challenging to make it all work and achieve excellent battery lifetime at the same time. I have seen you used some open source software in your watch, that is however not the most efficient way of software watch design. If someone would occasionally wear the watch, it would still drain the battery, no matter what. One battery will last for about 7 years if my watch is worn only 1 day per week and will last at least one year with daily usage. For this reason, it is not of much use to put a rechargeable battery in there. I'm not a fan myself to have a rechargeable battery in a watch, so for sure my nixie watch won't have one. Those Apple ipod watches ..... no, not something for me. I just think you can only call a device a wristwatch if the battery last for at least one year (without recharging), otherwise you just have a clock (or something else) attached to a strap :-). Anyway, looking forward to see your new design as well, I hope it is something more creative than the 3 1/2 digit one that Jeff Thomas was working on already. Best regards, Michel On Jan 29, 2:08 pm, David Forbes <dfor...@dakotacom.net> wrote: > On 1/28/12 3:42 AM, Cobra007 wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Hello everybody here in the neonixie group. > > > I am also fascinated by wristwatches since I was like 5 years old. Had > > a small repair shop called "Kopriso" when I was 12 (see "Kopriso > > Watchmaking" on facebook). > > At some stage I came across Jeff Thomas and also David Forbes nixie > > watches and I thought it was a nice concept, but not very practical > > because of the size of these watches. I also think the watch enclosure > > from DF doesn't really match the beauty of the tubes and for sure > > there is potential in improvement regarding battery life. > > > I played around with the tubes and batteries and found a way to reduce > > the size, improve the design and get better battery life at the same > > time. This design is now in a concept stage, I should receive the > > boards within a few weeks to try it all out for real (see "Nixie > > Watch" on facebook). > > Michel, > > Interesting work. The Nixie watch has amazed me in that no one has made > a similar design in the seven years since I made mine and published the > source code and schematics on the Web. > > I'm also working on a smaller Nixie watch. There are batteries made for > Bluetooth that work well for this job. Recharging is something that > people are used to these days, what with phones and iPods etc. > > I'm naturally driven by the Steve Jobs design ethic. Look up the iPod > aquarium story to see what I mean. > > I'm still figuring out the buttons and power nibs to charge the watch. > > We'll see what happens. A 3d printer figures in somehow. > > -- > David Forbes, Tucson AZ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
