Bottled Nixie clock

posted Aug 22nd 2009 7:30am by Jakob Griffith
filed under: misc hacks

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Who could not love the tender glow of a Nixie display? It isn’t a new concept for them to be used in clocks, and usually it’s how they are housed or encased for display that sets them apart. [crazy_phisic] did the near impossible by building his Nixie clock almost entirely inside of a glass bottle. The circuit boards and logic components were soldered outside, but the final combination of parts (sometimes requiring specialty homemade tools) were assembled inside. We wonder how long it took him from start to finish after learning boats in bottles can take from minutes to months. The original post is in polish, but if you want to find out more there is a Google translation.

[via Semageek]

Comments [21]

tagged: boat, bottle, clock, nixie, nixie clock

Reader Comments

impressive, he could probably sell those and make a good dime

Posted at 8:23 am on Aug 22nd, 2009 by Tom Parker

Very nice! but i wonder if this would have any problems with overheating?

Posted at 8:34 am on Aug 22nd, 2009 by talkingjazz

Im damn impressed… now i want to build a nixie clock (have for awhile, but havent taken the time to plan one out)

Posted at 10:30 am on Aug 22nd, 2009 by abbott

I was thinking “that’s pretty cool” then I noticed he assembled it without cutting the bottle open… Best Nixie hack ever.

Posted at 11:56 am on Aug 22nd, 2009 by Wolf

“Very nice! but i wonder if this would have any problems with overheating?”

it appears that there are some vent holes in the bottle

Posted at 1:34 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by anon

i think those holes are for the buttons

Posted at 2:18 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by spacecoyote

10 out of 10 for ingenuity. Now what I’d like to see is someone make a “POV nixie clock” using a row of nixies on a spinning rotor. In a glass jar. :)

Maybe someone can make a “Borg Cube” of neons with some really ingenious driver circuit and use a 3-D array of them in a glass jar.

Posted at 4:25 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by conundrum

Nice to see that somebody from hackaday found something on elektroda:) Greetings from Poland;)

Posted at 4:25 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by mamut

that’s awesome, now I’d like to see it without the buttons and power cords

Posted at 6:53 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by Drew G

Really quite nice.

great job!

Posted at 7:39 pm on Aug 22nd, 2009 by strider_mt2k

really nice. It would be even better if he could work in the idea from that alarm pillow a couple days ago and replace the buttons with an accelerometer. Then maybe use the neck of the bottle to hold a battery?

Posted at 2:54 am on Aug 23rd, 2009 by cantido

Hope its not battery powered that would be annoying having to replace it!

Posted at 5:05 am on Aug 23rd, 2009 by Ryan Leach

Very nice indeed. Use reed switches, some form of digital pot setup and a battery in the neck and that’d make one sweet, portable (and possibly water-tight) clock!

Posted at 5:51 am on Aug 23rd, 2009 by jubes

I’ll take one!

Posted at 7:47 am on Aug 23rd, 2009 by CollinstheClown

if overheating wasn’t a problem, another alternative control mechanism could be infra-red, which of course provides an opportunity for an arduino fanbios/haters flamewar…
*ducks and runs*

Posted at 2:27 pm on Aug 23rd, 2009 by Richard

We didn’t start the flame war.

Posted at 9:55 pm on Aug 23rd, 2009 by arduino fanboy

But we did start the resulting fire…. :P

Posted at 1:45 am on Aug 24th, 2009 by draeath

@richard:

IR doesn’t pass through glass well.

Posted at 6:30 pm on Aug 24th, 2009 by bobdole

Hey folks, this clock was built by my friend Karol in Poland. The translation is a bit poor, especially that “Lord Charles” bit. I think it means “the patience of a saint”. Anyhow, [crazy_physic] helped with the programming of the clock while Karol did the actual building. Karol has made some other very nice clocks, but I agree that this is the most ingenious!

Posted at 8:51 am on Sep 6th, 2009 by mjrippe

@conundrum:
At least three POV or “propeller” clocks using nixie tubes have been made, that I’m aware of (but not in glass jars). The whole point of moving the tube is to simulate multiple tubes using only one, so why would you want “a row of” them?

One design that I’m aware of, which I’m not sure has ever been built, used two nixies in a “disc” configuration, with one tube of the rare inverted display format, so numbers could be shown upright at both the top and bottom of the circle. The other nixie POV clocks I’ve seen were of the edge-viewed, cylindrical configuration and used only a single tube.

Posted at 7:11 pm on Sep 6th, 2009 by A.J. Franzman

very nice…

Posted at 9:11 pm on Nov 2nd, 2009 by Wraith

Bottled Nixie clock

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