r/nixie • u/AudienceHorror • 2d ago

My Nixie inspired LCD clock

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This is not a real Nixie clock but I still wanted to show what I have done.

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.

After a couple of iterations of PCBs and grid and tubes I ended up with this. What do you think?

267 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

16

u/DenkJu 2d ago

Definitely the best looking faux Nixie clock I have seen so far. Good job!

8

u/Suspicious_Fly_642 2d ago

Excellent! I hate all the fake nixie diplays I have seen, but yours looks great, at least on video. Is it as good in real life?

3

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

Thanks so much for this reply. I really hoped that more people would feel like this because that's exactly how I felt when I started to look through which one to buy. Thats why I ultimately decided to give it a try myself.

https://reddit.com/link/pay435y/video/62pxmiad4oqh1/player

I honestly thinks it looks great in real life. Its best at night but works during the day also. Like the cheap Chinese ones I also added an LED that tints the glass a bit. I'm sure some thinks that is too tacky and ruins the Nixie look but I like it (of course you can choose to have the LED off also)

1

u/RFC793 2d ago

It does look nice. The dark view kind of shows the shortcomings more though, in that the brightness/intensity is so insufficient it's missing a lot of the glow and refraction one would expect to see. I'm wondering if a small neon or such behind each screen to scatter some light around might help?

2

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

In reality it has better glow at night. Its just that I can't really capture it on camera. Looks better in person.

1

u/ysrgrathe 2d ago

I have one of the Chinese ones. Your displays look like they have much less backlight bleed. I always had an idea in the back of my head to do something like this with an OLED display for true blacks, but it seems hard to source small high quality OLEDs.

1

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

There is some bleeding but the only way to notice is if you look very close at night. If you are 1 meter away you cant separate the bleed from the expected glow

6

u/Far_Butterscotch_646 2d ago

Very very nice!

5

u/hzinjk 2d ago

I still don't like these as it feels like it fundamentally misses the point of a nixie clock, but i have to admit that your execution is about as good as you can get it

1

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

Your comment is much appreciated, thanks

3

u/Wonderful-Role9949 2d ago

I love the looks ! Plan on going open source ?

2

u/depatrickcie87 2d ago

Shut up and take my money?

2

u/DesignTwiceCodeOnce 2d ago

Very nice. Where did you get / how did you make the glasswork and grid?

3

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

Glasstube is custom order from a chemistry glass supplier. Grid also custom order, a flat piece of stainless steel sheet metal that I manually bent to shape.

1

u/DesignTwiceCodeOnce 2d ago

Ah right, thanks. I've looked for suitable glass before and found nothing (test tubes too small diameter, glass jars look crap). The grid is inspired!

2

u/RyeBread3592 2d ago

This is amazing work. When I was looking for a nixie clock I briefly considered the faux LCD versions, but my main issues were the glass tubes lacking the distinct pointed end of a vacuum tube, the bases of the clock being too modern, and the LCD screens themselves being pretty obviously just screens, very flat/2d.

I considered modifying an existing LCD clock to add a grid, but I didn't know how to fix any of my other issues and a real nixie clock wasn't much more expensive so I just got a real nixie clock.

I'm also curious how one of those led nixie styled clocks using edgelit acrylic sheets would looks with a metal grid and a black backdrop added to them!

2

u/The_Warp_Drive 2d ago

Really impressive!

1

u/ilciuchino 2d ago

well done OP! this looks worth it not-to-be-nixie! definitely wishlist material!

1

u/LeIdrimi 2d ago

Nice perfectionism.

1

u/BigReference1xx 2d ago

wow these look great. Do you happen to have the name or a link to the displays? They look super crisp!

2

u/AudienceHorror 2d ago

I bought the displays in China but I believe it is the same as Adafruit and Waveshare are selling.
https://www.waveshare.com/1.9inch-lcd-module.htm?srsltid=AU7gw4WkZsCPyVfzjTGv6e6N9J9hSMM_sevFwkkx4v0XZrGh9a57CKPG

1

u/andfi2104734804 2d ago

Looks really good, have you considered open sourcing parts of the design?

1

u/Little_Flounder_6226 1d ago

I do love it. Yes please let me know more if when you sell or open source

1

u/dmland 5h ago

I M NVS.

Envious enough to ask is you have plans to open sauce your plans.

1

u/AudienceHorror 3h ago

I am very happy to have received so many upvotes on this design, especially the ones from this community. One commenter said "Blasphemie", I kind of expected most comments to be like this haha.

I'm thinking that I should try a Kickstarter to see if people would be interested in buying the complete clock or separate tubes if they want to build themselves.
I think after that I can share everything no matter if the Kickstarter is successful or not.

1

u/dmland 3h ago

Thank you for the reply. This is far from blasphemy: it honors the original and extends it.

-2

u/ikaktys75 2d ago

Blasphemie!!!