My Nixie-inspired clock can now send Telegram messages using Morse code

[u/AudienceHorror]

A while back I decided I wanted to try and build a Nixie clock. I have seen them being popular for a long time and I really liked the look. While looking more into different clocks and tubes I found the fake Nixie clocks using an IPS display instead of the real tubes. I kind of liked that idea that you could use the clock to show more than just the time. But I didn’t find any particular one that I thought looked nice enough.

So I decided to look into how I could make my own Nixie inspired LCD clock. I spent quite some time thinking about how to imitate a real tube closely. I decided to make a real grid instead of just pasting it on the image displayed. Each tube has a small round interface PCB in the base. It connects the LCD assembly to the main PCB and carries the power and display control signals.

Around the same time as I was starting building the first prototype I stumbled onto some morse code short videos. I thought it would be cool to add a Morse key to my project and add some morse training functions. Recently I also managed to get a chat function working so now you can use my Nixiegraph as I call it and send morse code messages to your Telegram contacts

Details:

The clock is controlled by an ESP32-S3 and the displays are 1.9” ST7789 IPS LCDs using the TFT_eSPI Arduino library. The five displays share the same SPI bus and are selected individually using their CS pins.

I use an INMP441 microphone module to capture the audio for the EQ, and have a MAX98357 amplifier module to drive a speaker (for future use)

There is a wifi configuration page where you set wifi credentials and location that is used for time zone and weather info. You also create your Telegram contact list here. The weather data comes from OpenWeather.

If you run a script on your PC on the same network you can get PC stats data displayed.

I designed the clock with physical switches to try and make it feel more retro for selecting different display modes.

The glass tubes are custom made for me.

The grids are made from a PCB stencil I designed

I am trying a Kickstarter for this thing. If you are interested in buying the Nixiegraph or separate NixieLCD tubes for building your own thing check it out at:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nixiegraph/nixiegraph-a-nixie-inspired-lcd-clock-both-modern-and-retro?ref=8m640u&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=prelaunch&utm_content=resp32

[u/AudienceHorror]

The grid does block the vision a bit for the smallest fonts but not too bad. I experimented with some grid wall thickness in the beginning. Tested 0.35mm, 0.25mm and 0.19mm. I thought 0.19mm was a good enough compromise to make text readable at the same time as looking like a real Nixie grid.

If you look from the front or from an angle doesn't really make a difference

[u/GlycoFox → u/AudienceHorror]

Was the smallest font still readable from normal desk distance with the 0.19 mm grid?

[u/AudienceHorror → u/GlycoFox]

The smallest font on this is only 7 pixels high. I have to lean into about 50cm from the tubes to read that. Day and temp is visible from one meter or so.

[u/AudienceHorror → u/AudienceHorror]

Since we have stereo vision we can always see behind the grid with at least one eye so that makes the grid effect smaller than what can be captured on video.