Technology Connections' Alex has a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGT1EvmDJh4
those are numitrons, they use tungsten filament, whereas nixie tubes work by neon glow discharge
Nixie Tubes (2015)
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Re: Nixie Tubes (2015)
#42The author has a great youtube channel - DiodeGoneWild. His teardowns of vintage (eg. soviet RF tubes) and contemporary (eg. various products of chinese ingenuity) are worth checking out.
Re: Nixie Tubes (2015)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I finally took a different path and did it with VFD. No high voltage, they're cheaper, and one could say VFDs and Nixies are family :p I took the open source project Flora-ESP8266 [0] in the IV-22 size, changed a couple things in the BOM that weren't available, and ordered a bunch of pcbs. Now I have a bunch of extra PCBs that I could use to build extra clocks :-) I would have loved to change the PCB to use an ESP32…
Numitrons are another option; they only require 5V to light the segments. They have a very strange, almost steampunk aesthetic (though Technology Connections is not a fan…) Unlike Nixies or VFDs, they emit a broad spectrum of light, so you can put any color filter you like in front of them (red, green, blue) I made an alarm clock from some unusual Soviet 9-segment Numitrons a while ago. The code/design is in GitHub a…
Oh nice! I'll save that on my list of cool displays. I might do something with them one day...
(Same as with the bunch of vintage HP QDSP-6064 tiny bubble displays that I have. I bought a dozen of them for a dollar or two each some years ago, when some NOS stock appeared by surprise, but now they're running like 20 to 40$ a piece in eBay if you can find them.)
Re: Nixie Tubes (2015)
#44I wanted a nixie clock and there are three options: 1) Build yourself, using second-hand tubes (typically 'new old stock' which means Soviet-era but unused) and your own PCB or a kit. Lots of these kits online, but be warned it involves high voltages, so not a good beginner project. IN-12 tubes are small and easy to find, larger tubes are more expensive. 2) Pay someone else to make a hand-made one - very expensive 3)…
There are now many suppliers if kits, just search nixie kit and there are lots of suppliers. There are even companies making new nixie tubes now.
Re: Nixie Tubes (2015)
#45I wanted a nixie clock and there are three options: 1) Build yourself, using second-hand tubes (typically 'new old stock' which means Soviet-era but unused) and your own PCB or a kit. Lots of these kits online, but be warned it involves high voltages, so not a good beginner project. IN-12 tubes are small and easy to find, larger tubes are more expensive. 2) Pay someone else to make a hand-made one - very expensive 3)…
An additional point on 1): if you buy a DIY kit online, be prepared to get a package full of SMT chips, not ones that can be soldered by hand unless you have very stable hands. You'll need a reflow oven, heat gun, or some other way to get SMTs onto a PCB.
I'll add to the chorus of disagreement here. If you can see the pins (YMMV on whether you need magnification for this), SMT isn't drastically more difficult to solder than through-hole, in some cases easier. It is slightly less tolerant of bad equipment, though.
(And I have pretty shaky hands, but SMD is still fine after a decent amount of caffeine)