[neonixie-l] Re: Seven digit nixie clock

[gregebert]

Mitch - Do you run any simulations on your design before fabbing boards ?

As a rule, I run a lot of spice simulations on the analog, particularly the 
power supplies. My second clock had a subtle wiring error that caused spice 
not to converge, and if I had not fixed the error it would have smoked at 
power-on. So far, I've done 3 boards with no errors; the boards were right 
the first time. The spice deck is partially created from the PCB netlister.

For digital stuff, I do verilog simulations, and I do have to spend a lot 
of time coding-up models for various ICs.

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Re: [neonixie-l] Motorola Oncore UT wrong date

[Jonathan Peakall]

Thanks for the thoughts. I am going to program up a data dump from the 
unit and see if I can find anything. For the moment I have simply 
corrected the UTC offset manually, which means reprogramming twice a 
year. So odd, over a decade of use with no problems. I checked my DST 
code and it is correct, the date is the issue.  ANother odd aspect: The 
date is incrementing every day. It was starting with 1/14/2000 now it 
says 1/16/2000. Hmmm...


Jonathan





On 8/31/2015 12:27 AM, Paolo Cravero wrote:

[not a solution, but info worth sharing]

Hi Jonathan,
when I read your description my thoughts went back to that time my 
Garmin Geko 201 (small GPS tracker) recorded a date 15 years back in time.


Digging around I discovered that GPS/NMEA carry a 10 bit "week" 
information, which makes a rollover every 1024 weeks. But quoting a 
search result (written in 2013):

The last rollover (and the first since GPS went live in 1980)
was  22 August 1999; the next would fall in 2019, but plans are
afoot to upgrade the satellite counters to 13 bits; this will delay
the next rollover until 2173
So what you are seeing is not due to a week rollover, even though my 
Geko 201 showed the problem in 2010 (and others too).


Perhaps Motorola hardcoded a "starting date" that matched a week 
number and counted from that point. Then a software variable has 
overflowed or 1024 have passed and you're back to "Oncore UT day 0".


If the delta_days is constant you might add it to your code right 
after reading the date information? You might discover is it some 
integer number falling within powers of 2. :-)


Paolo

PS: Garmin has issued a firmware update for the Geko 201. But I doubt 
I will get a new firmware in 2019...


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[neonixie-l] Re: Seven digit nixie clock

[gregebert]

You can certainly connect the HV5530's "in-parallel" to the CPU. I would be 
more concerned about signal-levels, because the HV5530 is intended to run 
with 12V logic levels and your CPU is probably 3.3V. I'm using a 
level-shifter IC in my design, along with an FPGA.

BTW, I'm putting the finishing touches on my first IN-18 clock PCB; It's 
definitely worth the extra expense of IN-18's to get large and 
properly-formed digits (no funky upside-down 2's and 5's).

I decided to use socket pins soldered to the pcb, rather than actual  IN-18 
sockets, because of space constraints. I hope I'm not going to regret this 
decision, and I'm definitely going to be very careful to form the pins to 
minimize stress. I also will not be swapping tubes around to even-out their 
usage (using de-poisoning algorithm instead).

Do you plan to run your IN-18's 24/7, or will you use a motion-sensor, etc ?

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[neonixie-l] Re: Seven digit nixie clock

[Mitch]

The 1284P runs at 5v, and I use a CD4504 level shifter. Someone here 
suggested that, and even though none of the commercial clocks I'm familiar 
with use one they are cheap and easy to include. That will also make it 
easy to go to a 3.3v chip in the future, with only some adjusted resistor 
values. I think every other solid state component on this design is 3.3v 
compatible.

I'm not sure if there is any advantage to connecting the HV5530s in 
parallel to the processor, maybe faster updating. That's why I asked. The 
current design works fine as is, with three connected in series. I'm not 
sure if it will work for a fifteen digit clock with five HV5530s, though.

I like the IN-18, too. It is certainly the best large tube for the money, 
nothing else comes close price wise.

I use acrylic disks under the IN-14 and Z570M series tubes, and I'll do the 
same for the IN-18. Check the picture. They are 5mm think, but I went to 
3mm for the reorder. Illustrator files are included for them in the zip. 
I'll have an IN-18 version soon, too.

The Spectrum 18 also uses acrylic disks under each tube, and individual 
pins. If the component layout for the IN-18 is done carefully and the pins 
are soldered while on the tubes, there should not be any stress on them.

I run most clocks from 6pm-11pm, which is when I'm around. This clock has 
three override periods that are weekday and weekend aware, so I run it 6-11 
during the week, and all day weekends. I don't use the PIR now, but after I 
build a few I'll set one up that way.

Do you plan to share your design?



On Tuesday, September 1, 2015 at 6:43:41 PM UTC-4, gregebert wrote:
>
> You can certainly connect the HV5530's "in-parallel" to the CPU. I would 
> be more concerned about signal-levels, because the HV5530 is intended to 
> run with 12V logic levels and your CPU is probably 3.3V. I'm using a 
> level-shifter IC in my design, along with an FPGA.
>
> BTW, I'm putting the finishing touches on my first IN-18 clock PCB; It's 
> definitely worth the extra expense of IN-18's to get large and 
> properly-formed digits (no funky upside-down 2's and 5's).
>
> I decided to use socket pins soldered to the pcb, rather than actual 
>  IN-18 sockets, because of space constraints. I hope I'm not going to 
> regret this decision, and I'm definitely going to be very careful to form 
> the pins to minimize stress. I also will not be swapping tubes around to 
> even-out their usage (using de-poisoning algorithm instead).
>
> Do you plan to run your IN-18's 24/7, or will you use a motion-sensor, etc 
> ?
>

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[neonixie-l] Neon Digital Tube Clock

[J Forbes]

I made this clock around 2002, and made the video around 2008. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM9TW6GcCQE

http://selectric.org/tubeclock/index.html

I probably need to update the web page! But anyways, the clock quit working 
not long after I made the video, and has just sat doing nothing. For some 
reason I brought it out into the light a couple days ago, and started 
messing with it. The counting was not working, it would sometimes show 
movement, other times just sit stuck. I poked and prodded and noticed it 
would sometimes start working for a little while if I wiggled one of the 
four tubes in the input circuit (which turns the sine wave of the line 
voltage into a 60 Hz pulse). I realized I could try substituting tubes, and 
see if it would make a difference. The third one I tried, did the trick. 
The 6U8A seemed to want to be replaced, it started counting just fine. 

Then I decided to see if I could fix the setting issue. When I was working 
on the clock originally, I decided to make it into a tall obelisk case, but 
never got around to actually building the case. To make it fit, I extended 
the wires from the main unit to the Hour/Minute display unit, and it has 
always been finicky about setting time since I did that. I decided that 
maybe it could fit in a smaller case now, so I shortened the wires, and now 
it works great. I can set the time easily.

It's been running for a day and a half, keeping good time. But it sure does 
get warm, with 31 vacuum tubes!

Anyways, hope all of you are doing well, and enjoy my little blast from the 
past

Jim

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[neonixie-l] Re: Seven digit nixie clock

[gregebert]

Once I finish the clock (a few months from now, I hope...) and post a 
video, I'll probably give copies of my design report to people in this 
forum who request it.

Each of my display boards has two HV5530 devices that are connected in 
series, but I have separate clock signals in order to guarantee hold-time 
margin by using a 2-phase clock. When multiple display boards are used (for 
more than 6 tubes), they each have their own separate serial-data-in 
signal. All other signals are shared in-common. 


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