Episode: 3016
Title: HPR3016: Nixie tube clock and friends!
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3016/hpr3016.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 15:11:46

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This is Hacker Public Radio, episode 3,016, for Monday the 24th of February 2020.
Today's show is entitled Nixie Tube, Clock and Friends. Quote,
it is hosted by operator
and is about 15 minutes long
and carries a clean flag. The summer is
I chat about novice Nixie tubes and tronics soldering, etc.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by An Honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting
with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at An Honesthost.com.
And hello, welcome to the episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Welcome to the episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Today we're going to talk about several things, but this one's going to be about Nixie tubes, Nixie clocks,
and my first real kit.
Hello and welcome to the episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host operator.
Today we're going to talk about several things,
but this one's going to be about Nixie tubes, Nixie clocks,
and my first real kit for drop-in component kit deal.
And kind of some guidelines and principles
and tips along the way that I've uncovered.
So I've had crappy radio shack soldering iron probably
up until two years ago or so.
But about two years ago, I bought a fancier soldering iron
and I kept the lead free solder from radio shack
that I've had for probably 20 years.
I had two different spools of it.
And I ordered this Nixie tube kit.
It's like a $60 kit, comes with LED and a little panel.
It's not very beginner friendly,
and it's probably something I shouldn't have ventured into.
So I got like a breadboard and did some basic soldering stuff.
Did some practice soldering skills.
You can basically buy a breadboard and just practice
on soldering components in or just getting fake components
or even just LEDs and make a little soldering LED board
and get some little LED projects.
They're usually for kids and stuff and learn to out a solder first.
But I figured, you know, since I've got a fancy soldering iron
and a couple of tools here and there and like a solder pool,
which apparently is not super useful.
And I got this drop-in solder kit.
I'll put this thing in the show notes.
But the guy is from Rob G and he sells some kits on
it's like Tindle.com.
Again, I'll put all the stuff in the show notes.
But I've kind of been obsessed with Nixie tube stuff
for the past couple of years.
I saw the opportunity for this project
and there's a former Hecker space guy down the street
that, you know, I knew was into all that
and was good at doing solder stuff.
He apparently has two oscilloscopes.
And so this guy down the street, he's a real sharp dude
and I would kind of volunteer him for certain tasks
and you know, just as a joke.
But I eventually bought this kit
before then I had kind of fixed a few things here and there.
Little solder projects, something's broken
and I'll solder the contact back on there.
But nothing compared to this.
This is a, you know, a whole complete build.
And it has these really small pads.
That was a big complaint from Jay.
Is it the pads on here where tiny little pads
on the board to solder.
But other than that, it's a pretty good kit.
And I'll probably buy another one
or like it.
So my general comments are
I should have used a lead based solder.
I should have learned how to solder first.
And kind of towards the end of this project,
I feel like I'm, you know, one out of, you know,
one out of five might be
not the perfect solder.
But I feel like, you know,
four out of five is a pretty good joint
when I've got it going.
When I've got things going, I've got good heat
and I've got good, a good flow going.
And it is an art form, the soldering stuff.
And it's definitely fun to do.
So I'm definitely going to do some more projects
for Halloween and any kind of little job.
So on to the fun stuff.
I, um, the tubes that I got are the,
I want to say, iron 12s.
They're fairly cheap.
You can buy them in bulk.
So if you're going to buy the kit,
try to buy a kit with the bulbs already.
And it just so you don't have to be frustrated about
worrying whether or not the bulbs work
and then have to return them.
They're fairly cheap.
Yeah, you're going to pay an extra, you know,
maybe 100% for each bulb.
But they're relatively cheap.
So if you end up paying, you know,
$40 for four bulbs
in the really only $20 or something like that,
it's not the biggest hit in the world.
But if you want to go on the cheap,
and then buy the board,
um, that by the kit,
and then make your own case.
Um, so
I started to solder the components in.
It came with great instructions.
Rob G provided color instructions.
I printed them out at my local,
um, printer shop,
or actually, kinkos or FedEx
or, uh, office depot even.
And printed out color copies
of all the, the diagram stuff.
Started soldering with the lead.
Free stuff from 100 years ago.
And it was, it was pretty much a nightmare.
The, uh, skill I had was pretty bad.
And towards the end, I got a little bit better
with the lead free stuff.
And once I got a hold of the nice lead
solder that, um, J suggested,
um, I had a lot easier time.
I'm pausing a lot,
because whenever I record,
it's usually late at night.
And, uh, I end up,
yawning the more I talk.
I think it's, uh,
it's a indication,
actually, of having poor vocals
and having poor breathing rhythm.
So I'm not actually breathing properly,
is why I'm yawning a lot.
So I'll try to,
not yawning, um,
when I record it or at least cut them out,
as I'm yawning.
But anyways, I'm related to it.
Um, this thing's really cool.
It has a, uh, has the four tubes.
And then it has these elite,
not LED tubes,
but they're smaller cathode tubes, um,
for the digits.
So you can get a four-digit one,
and then a six-digit one,
which will show you the seconds.
So if it's your first one, um,
you know, you can get the four-digit one.
You'll save yourself a little bit of money
on, on that.
If you wanted to get a nice,
nicer six-digit one,
you get the N12 six-digit.
And then from there, you're talking about the N18s.
The N12-digit two tubes,
unless you really like them.
Um, there's some projects out there
to, uh, create little watches for the tiny,
nixy tubes.
Um, there, it'll have two tubes in it,
and then you wear this giant watch,
and I don't know how it works with the insane voltage.
But the idea is you press a button,
and it turns on for a few seconds.
to put into its 160 volts. This one was idling around 180 volts. This was idling around
180 up to 92 in some spots. And I soldered the board. J came over and completely re-touched up
the whole board. I put way too much solder on and my solder joints were cold. A lot of them were
cold. I got pictures of all that stuff on the LinkedIn. I'll provide. But he helped out a lot with
and we plugged it in and had some issues and he said, oh well you might have fried the crystal
which I soldered to the board more or less because I thought that's what was supposed to happen
in the picture. But it was more of solder was placed next to the crystal so that way if it
were to get bumped or whatever it wouldn't crack off or have any issues sliding off of there.
And the other component was a transistor. Two transistors towards the front for the step-up
of voltage or the step-down of voltage. And they had kind of these heat sinks that stick out.
The problem with the big heat sinks on these transistors is when you want to solder them in
they need lots and lots and lots of heat. So I was worried about A frying the crystal
and which I put a lot of heat to and then crystals that they may keep in the time.
And the other piece I was concerned about was the again the transistors up towards the AC
voltage or up next to the plug-in. So when Jay came over the second time as there are a couple of
times of nagging him. Eventually it was gracious enough to help me out.
Brought of the oscilloscope showed me some cool stuff. We did a fair amount of troubleshooting
and you know we couldn't figure out what I was going to figure out what it was. And finally
looked at this one resistor tested it. It tested out fine but everything down the pipe was giving us
issues along the signaling of the switches. And he said you know what let's just let's just
solder this back in and see what happens. And sure enough you know we were able to resolder this
one resistor and it solved all our problems. And that's when I you know what it was indicated to me
that you know it's an analog world you know it's kind of nothing's really black and white
you know coming coming from a software background you know you tell a computer you know add one
and one it gives you two and Jay kind of gave the analogy of you know it's sometimes a two is a
seven and sometimes it's a one and a half and depending on how much voltage you run through it
maybe it's a six and maybe if you don't run enough voltage through it now that you know one or
two that's supposed to be a two becomes a 0.5 or whatever. So it's you know he said it's a dirty
world and I kind of open my eyes to the frustration that can come with with all this stuff and it's
also kind of interesting to to figure out okay where do I want to go next you know if I if I do
one of these projects again and I come into issues how how enjoyable is that troubleshooting
aspect as opposed to software troubleshooting or things that there's because a little bit of there's
a little bit of translation or a little bit of connection between those two but I feel like I've
always been easily frustrated in the analog world because I'll get hot or frustrated or I'll have
a tool in my hand or you know I'll have to take something back apart again and that aspect of
physically having to tear something apart and put it back together several times over to fix a
problem can be a little discerning to me I've always kind of been frustrated and had a short
temper with with with technology I can sit there and fuzz with a script all day that's not working
but in the analog world I feel like I reach a critical mass and then I have to step away from
from the object so that I don't destroy it but it was great project other tips I can say is
you know take your time you know measure twice solder once get your non-led free solder get you
a little fan to put in there get you a nice soldering iron get you a little magnifying you know
the drop down ones that go in front of your face or you can get the head attached ones which is what
I got I prefer kind of the the goofy head attached method because you know having a big having
to pull out a big huge lamp module and with a snakey bin thing and having to do all that mess
I just don't necessarily have the room for it and I'd rather have something on my head
than have to worry about lugging some something around but those are some options for you
I want to say the the clock has a couple of features that are interesting the one has like a lottery
type of countdown where when the minute changes it will kind of do a lot of what they call the
cathode poisoning or whatever to make this cool looking effect and it gives it that really cool
awesome effect so what you know I'll probably build another one of these I'll probably
post or do another comment follow up episode on the next one of these nixie tubes I do I'll probably
do it as a gift or just out of passion I I hear that they don't last all that long but the great
thing about the in the iron 12s is that they're plethora of them and they're plenty of old ones
they're plenty of new stock now when you start getting into those those iron 18s or whatever
they're about from what I can tell they're about 50 bucks a pop so if you know you don't necessarily
want that to be your first project and if you're gonna get six of them you know that's like
three in a box right there I feel like that's about the average price that you're gonna pay for
these and they're not that much bigger than the the n12s so I'd almost rather have like a six digit
n12 then have you know a four digit 18 so anyways um just trying to think about their tips
you know just start small start on small things greeting cards you can google circuit bending and
play around with that fun stuff to show kids have your kids help you I'll list out all the gear
that I can possibly list out that I've purchased I'm not an expert I actually ordered the wrong
kind of solder pin but because of the nature of that stuff they won't let you do returns on
stuff like that so I ordered a no clean or the non no clean solder pin or the flex flex pin
and so I ended up giving that away I'm sure there's a use for it but I don't have a use for it
as as as of that but so get yourself a solder clean pin and get you a nice I've got a newer
copper basically it's a little copper strip that you can pull desodder stuff with
that soaks up solder pull a little copper mesh thing but I'll have all that in the show notes
and I won't claim to be obviously an expert in any of this but I did enjoy the project and I'm
definitely looking forward to building some more interesting led stuff from different websites so
if you guys have any suggestions of maybe a top review of websites for you know led type of projects
or anything like that looking to build a cat feeder eventually might be one of my other projects
an automatic cat feeder type of thing you know I'll keep you guys updated to that but that's
pretty much where we're at hopefully I should be able to record some other stuff for you guys
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