The entries for our Fubarino contest are slowly yet surely coming in. [James] already had an awesome VFD clock under his belt, and figured adding a Hackaday easter egg to his project would be simple enough.
[James’] clock is based on the TI Stellaris LaunchPad with six beautiful seven-segment VFD display tubes. The clock’s time is controlled by a DS1307 RTC chip, and a small switch-mode power supply controlled by the Stellaris boosts the power from 5 Volts to 50 Volts for the tubes. The tubes are controlled with a Max6921 VFD driver chip.
The easter egg for this project – displaying the Hackaday URL – is only shown when you power up the clock when the seconds display shows 37. That’s extremely subtle for an easter egg and just the way we like it.
All the code for [James]’ project is up on GitHub along with the designs for the tube clock’s enclosure. Really an awesome project, and a great way for [James] to earn himself a Fubarino.
What are you waiting for? We still haven’t passed twenty entries which means your chances of winning are pretty good!
The is an entry in the Fubarino Contest. Submit your entry before 12/19/13 for a chance at one of the 20 Fubarino SD boards which Microchip has put up as prizes!
For a Swede the lead image for this post is perfect as “hackad” is Swedish for “hacked” :)
I want to know where he sourced the tubes.
They look similar to the many “Russian Nixie VFD tubes” on ebay right now. Looks like they are coming out of Ukraine. Is there such a thing as a Nixie tube knock-off?? This post reminds me of the few posts on HaD about making your own at home. Seems there is once again a market for these. Thanks Steampunk….. (a la “Thanks Obama”)