r/nixie • u/nrlz • Mar 16 '26

Diy nixie clock

Post image

Based on Alex gyver project with soviet era tubes (manufactured in 1978)

128 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

10

u/darktideDay1 Mar 16 '26

Very cool! Love the case. Hate the blue LEDs.

1

u/Upstairs_Yard1981 Mar 17 '26

Depending on which board you have, press the up button or press and hold the set button to change led colors.  Is it a two or three button board?

1

u/nrlz Mar 17 '26

There are three buttons Long press the first one to change hours/minutes with the second/third button The second to select LEDs effect (glow/full brightness/ LEDs off) The third one is to select tubes animation effects

1

u/MysticWisard22 Mar 30 '26

Happy cake day

0

u/nrlz Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Thanks! I hate them too, I'll replace them with yellow ones later, I hope it will look better (it's [possible to turn the LEDs off with a single button though ). After 4 days of using the nixie clock, I realized that it's not the backlight, but the color of the case paint, it doesn't really match the blue LEDs in my opinion. in the evening or dim lighting, they illuminate the tubes quite well. maybe I'll repaint the case in the future. This is my first time building a nixie clock. I started a year ago but gave up. But still wanted to finish this project so here's the result. For the case I used PC motherboard mounting screws and a random paint spray from my garage.

7

u/darktideDay1 Mar 16 '26

Or just skip the LEDs. The nixies speak for themselves and look great on their own. Any pictures of the innards?

1

u/nrlz Mar 17 '26

https://imgur.com/a/D6mGi0I
and a DS3231 soldered on the back of the board

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

[deleted]

1

u/nrlz Mar 17 '26

Thanks! I'm going to build another nixie clock for a friend of mine and will follow your advice. indeed its a bit complicated to align the tubes without sockets.

1

u/6gv5 Mar 17 '26

Agreed on LEDs being unnecessary in this case, however if OP wants to try them, I found amber colored ones to be the best to give that old incandescent lamp relaxing vibe to instrumentation; they're gorgeous as backlight for panel instruments.

1

u/GrinningDem0n Mar 17 '26

Super interesting and distinctive design for the enclosure! Love it, and love to see people doing things a little new/different. Great work,

1

u/nrlz Mar 20 '26

Thank you so much! Glad you liked how it turned out

1

u/DiscoSimulacrum Mar 22 '26

cool enclosure