Hi Michail,
there's no technical reason not to go with more tubes, the
smartsockets can be chained together more or less indefinitely (there is
*eventually* a speed issue as the boards pass the data along the chain at
9600 baud ) and the pi has loads of resource compared with a
microcontroller. I started with four tubes but they seem to be addictive
and I now have twelve but only eight are mounted :)
I was thinking of going for ten in total as that would cover most words
commonlyused but my current temporary chassis ( a 2U 19" blanking plate )
is full now.
The number of PSU slots on the PCB was really just governed by the maximum
PCB size of 100mm x 100mm for the prototype deal. Currently one PSU per
pair of tubes seems to work OK, I'll get to measuring the current properly
soon but for a while I had three tubes off one PSU without any apparent
problems.
I see you had a go at displaying your name :) Sorry about the camera angle
that seems to have tilted somewhat, it'll have to stay that way till I get
back to my workshop in the new year. That's the next big bit: making a case
and proper camera stand rather than the bit of rail and vice deployed now :)
Cheers,
Robin.
On Saturday, December 26, 2015 at 3:57:26 PM UTC, Michail wrote:
>
> Very nice.
>
> Other than funds, is there anything stopping you from going to a longer
> string of tubes?
>
> Is the intent to go to a longer string since you currently have 4x power
> supplies?
>
> Michail
>
>
> In a message dated 12/22/2015 2:30:04 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
> ro...@cqr-ltd.com <javascript:> writes:
>
> Hi Folks,
> I've been upgrading my twitter connected nixie clock ( see
> http://nixiebot.tumblr.com ) and have designed a little PCB to replace
> the current veroboard mess that holds the PSU and so on (the tubes are on
> smart sockets).
>
> The PCB carries spots for up to six TaylorEdge 1363 PSU modules, also a
> connector for jumpering over to a raspberry pi then breaking out the UART
> TX and RX signals, plus a spot for a 5V switcher regulator (standard 7805
> pinout, I use a traco TSI 10n-1211 myself as I have some lying around ) to
> power the Pi and smart sockets.
> Oh and a pulldown resistor for the common enable on the PSUs and a divider
> for the signal coming from the last smart socket so the pi doesn't get its
> RX pin damaged.
>
> I got it made through dirtypcbs.com ( see here:
> http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=14240&accesskey=03a603186ce693a85368e67043d333fd
>
> ) and as a result have about twenty spare as it ended up being too big for
> the small 5cm x 5cm deal but small enough to panelise two for the 10cm x
> 10cm deal... They delivered eleven panels in three weeks, still cost about
> the same as getting one made anywhere else though!
>
> So, if anyone in the UK wants a bare board for free then drop me a line
> with your address and I'll pop it in an envelope, season of good will and
> all that :)
> Usual disclaimers apply, not my fault if you burn your house down with
> this!
>
> If I were to do it again I would:
> a) Make the DC in track to the PSUs a bit wider (should be good for 6A
> as it is though)
> b) Move the 5V regulator as it makes one 1363 slot unusable with the
> regulator I use due to overhang and interferes with the power in connector
> too.
> c) Add in some spots for power decoupling caps.
> d) Change the mounting holes so it can stack on top of a Raspberry Pi
> properly
> e) Panelise it properly (it was a quick copy and paste job in eagle so
> component designations are different on each board of the pair. It's such a
> simple circuit that this shouldn't be a problem )
>
> I've attached eagle files in case anyone feels they might be useful. All
> critique welcome :)
>
> Some new features have crept into the NixieBot software too...
> It now can make animated gif movies for scrolling messages (100
> frame limit though due to twitter upload limits ) simply
> use_underscores_to_separate_words.
> It keeps a rolling buffer of all tweet text in the last 1000 random
> stream tweets, it has word lists to classify nice words and bad words so
> you can request a movie of the words used of a certain class, along with
> modifier hashtags to control the display format (whether displayed in the
> order they arrived, or sorted by alphabet ( defaults to deduplicated list,
> can be left raw), or by popularity with display of count. So a sort of
> grammar of the commands you can send it over twitter via hashtags goes like
> this:
> #NixieBotShowMe [word or phrase | [ #twitNice | #twitSwears [#alphabetic
> [#raw] | #charts]]]
>
>
> More features to come over the new year I'm sure :)
>
> Cheers,
> Robin.
>
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