Edge-lit Nixie Tube Is Sheer Brilliance

It’s not often that we see something so brilliantly simple we’re left reaching for our checkbooks while wondering exactly how we never though of that before. [Jürgen]’s edge-lit Nixie display is one of those builds.

[Jürgen]’s modern take on a Nixie display uses ten laser-engraved pieces of acrylic to emulate a Nixie numerical display. In the base of the display are 10 LEDs, each shining onto the side of a piece of acrylic. When an LED lights up, you can clearly see the corresponding number. Edge-lit displays are old hat, but talking about the possibility of an RGB Nixie-style display is really neat.

The build was inspired by an antique edge-lit display that performed the same function as the ever-popular Nixie tube with 10 miniature light bulbs and light pipes. The ancient edge-lit displays came in a rectangular enclosure that worked very well for panel-mount uses, but [Jürgen] stuck to a more traditional cylindrical orientation. All we want to know is when a manufacturer in China is going to start building these. Check out the demo of the edge-lit Nixie after the break.

[vimeo=36983157]

[vimeo=36980928]

30 thoughts on “Edge-lit Nixie Tube Is Sheer Brilliance

    1. Well if you don’t want to call them Nixie how about E-Lixie (Edge Light ixie.) Still this display is cooler than the other side of the pillow. Next project, visual braille E-Lixie display.

    1. Nice find. I didn’t realize that this had already been done This only shows how hard it is to come up with something truly unique these days. Everything is either something old that peole don’t remember about or combination of different concepts, items etc. to form something “new”.

    1. Actually, I have some Nixies that were made in China. Not sure about the dates but probably late ’70s. I do agree their current manufacturing standards prevent me from wanting to buy anything they make.

      1. You can get really well made stuff from China as well as the worst possible junk, it all depends on how much you pay and from whom you buy. They simply have a lower low quality limit than ours, which doesn’t mean they always stick to it.

        Generally you get what you pay for.

  1. i JUST LOVE the prototype! it looks awesome!
    im going to make 1, or 4

    the following is not inteded as an attack on any staff, just a reminder of who the audience is… or sadly was, or was-shouldbe?

    “All we want to know is when a manufacturer in China is going to start building these.”
    WHAT ???

    you actually WANT sum1else to rip your design off and take away YOUr design profits?

    i hate it when people think of something so cheap to make and actually HOPE to buy it for 20 or 50 times the price.

    a set of 4 for a clock will cost you 200$ or more…

    is it still copyrighted? if it isnt, then why not make/sell it locally for a quarter of the price? making it in china would only be to skirt copyright, right?
    … overseas shipping = shipping costs …
    we already have plexi locally, dont we?

    hopefully we can get 2$ worth of plexi and MAKE it for very little effort instead of paying 50$ plus for each.

    the plexi could be obtained for free. (ive been offered scrap MANY times but was more interested in all the free electronics i could carry) after all, the display is like 2 inches by 3 inches,,, most scrap/free plexi is bigger…

    for the engraving try a drill, at an angle.

    for the cutting try a hot knife? but in a well ventilated area. EDIT: outside

    do NOT buy a hot knife, they are easy, cheap, and quick to make.

    buy a 5$ knife and make it electric by using solid-core copper wire to “twist-tie” a high-enough-wattage soldering iron to the side of a knife with-OUT plastic handle.

    PS: i hate to have to troll and i hope i kept it friendly and constructive, but hoping to pay more on this website… nuf said

  2. Let me be the “n”-th person to say these (very cool looking displays) aren’t “Nixies”.

    http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=1080
    NLS Edge-Lit Display (Non-Linear Systems)

    I can tell you for certain that these were in use in counter/scalers and cash registers at least as far back as 1965.

    A major advantage of this hack is that you can make the digits as big as you like.

    An earlier and similar display was an “RP” – Rear Projection made by IEE, also with ten lamps but back-projected the image of a digit (or any symbol actually) onto a frosted front screen.
    One is shown here;

    http://pobox.com/~JasonHarper/Nixie.html
    (down page to “The Shape of Clocks to Come”

    and here;
    http://mcnally.cc/clock.htm

    There was also a cathode-ray version (shown at link above).

    And of course with both of these you could filter the display to any colour(s) you wanted, ‘tho LED’s would be the go today.

    Another even earlier form was a vertical row of lamps with a digit in front of each.

    (Braille pin “displays” have also been done in pre-history :))

  3. Fantastic idea and beatiful execution, very nice indeed. There seems to be a bit of color bleed from one digit to another, perhaps if the base piece was black (oranyopaque) acrylic istead of clear this would be taken care of.

    1. Good observation. Perhaps all the LEDs except the farthest back could have a few hundred ohms current limiting resistor in series, the ones at the front being the highest resistance? Not sure how to determine the resistance scale, but maybe using a photographic lightmeter could objectively determine brightness.

  4. Lovely idea, i’ve been wanting to make a nixie clock for a long time just for shits&giggles, but i’m on a bit of a tight budget especially considering the cost of the nixie tubes and the fact that LEDs most likely last a lot longer.

    NewCommemorator1283 above mentions using an angled drill for engraving the numbers, a further tip for that process would be to cover the plexiglass sheet in masking tape to prevent the drill from slipping, the tape can then be removed and the sheet can be cleaned with water. Making shallow and careful holes with a vertical drill should do the trick also.

    Some kind of acid + a good stencil or sandblasting could probably give it a more realistic nixie look, or maybe a small (1-2mm) CNC mounted drill. :)

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