How about a “transistor only” clock?
http://transistorclock.com

amazing! I noticed how he bundled the wires the old style using waxed string. how neat and clean design. JAW DROPPING!!! Congratulations!

It is, although a real electronic clock from that era probably would have used Dekatrons as counters.

There is a little problem with the neon clock, it’s designed for 220/240V, here is a voltage doubler:

http://www.coolcircuit.com/circuit/voltage/index.html

The neon-lamp click is really cool, and I didn’t even know you could do that with those. Maybe I’ll have to check out some used book stores and such for old electronics books.

I once considered doing something like the neon clock, but could not figure out how to drive the nixies from the ring counters.

The nixie neon uses an Atmega328P… Way too easy… :-)

Neon-CR relaxation oscillators can be used as fixed dividers and some organs have been based on them, but they need stable supplies and light-tight covering. And your clock/organ can double as a cosmic ray detector. I’ve seen neon flip flops, “tri-stables” (three neons) and ring-of-five counters. A popular arrangement for counters pre-silicon was the bi-stable ahead of a ring of five, decoding as odd and even drives to globes, neons &c.

I keep falling in love with nixie tubes over and over again. Am I crazy?

You just have to love the vacuum tube clock. It is built pretty as well as wired real pretty. Something the builder can be proud of!

Phillipe, just for reference, the atmega328p does not run the lamps in the nixieneon. It just helps keep then telling the correct time periodically. Except to set the clock, it can be completely disabled as well. The rings are self feeding.

Agent420, I like the idea of the pendulum, then you need to add the equivalence of an escapement but electromechanical. Something you can see in action unlike the hall or optical sensor.

Oh man…relay porn.

awesome