Nixie Tube Dashboard Is Period-Appropriate Hack To Vintage Volvo

December 24, 2025 by Tyler August 9 Comments

There’s no accounting for taste, but it’s hard to argue with The Autopian when they declare that this Nixie tube dash by [David Forbes] is “the coolest speedometer of all time” — well, except to quibble that it’s also the coolest tachometer, temperature gauge, oil pressure indicator, and voltmeter. Yeah, the whole instrument cluster is on [David]’s Volvo PV544 is nixified, and we’re here for it.

He’s using a mixture of tubes here– the big ones in the middle are the speedo and tachometer, while the ovals on either side handle the rest. There’s a microcontroller on the front of the firewall that acts a bit like a modern engine control unit (ECU) — at least for the gauges; it sounds like the Volvo’s engine is stock, and that means carbureted for a car of that vintage.

The idea that this hack could have been done back in the 50s when the car was new just tickles us pink. Though you’d have probably needed enough valves to fill up the boot, as our British friends would say. Translate that to “enough vacuum tubes to fill the trunk” if you’re in one of the rebellious colonies.

We’ve featured [David]’s projects previously, in the form of his wearable video coat. But his best known work is arguably the Nixie Watch, famously the timepiece of choice for Steve Wozniak.

Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!

All images by Griffin Riley via The Autopian

Nissan 300zx Dash Given A New Language

June 8, 2023 by Matthew Carlson 6 Comments

You don’t have to be a car enthusiast to recognize that the 1984 Nissan 300x dash is a work of art. The graceful swoops and multisegment VFDs evoke an aesthetic that reminds us of a particular era. Rather than replace his dash with something drab and modern, [Evan] modified his dash to accept input from newer devices. Many of the sensors that feed directly into the dash are becoming harder to find as the years wear on, and rather than spoof every old device, [Evan] looked at each gauge.

Temperature and oil pressure are variable resistance sensors, and by removing half the voltage divider, it becomes a variable voltage sensor, as modern temperature sensors can output a voltage from 0 to 5. The tachometer required tracing the signal through the PCB as it expects a pulse every time a cylinder fires. By simulating cylinder pulses with a function generator, [Evan] found the filtering circuit and the microcontroller pin monitoring it. An optoisolator to protect the delicate MCU makes it easy to pipe the signal directly in.

Of course, not everything needed to be modified. A vacuum sensor provides a signal to the dash to indicate how much power the engine produces, which is pretty easy to spoof with a teensy connected to the CAN bus. All these mods are easily reversible and allow [Evan] to keep rocking the iconic dash with a more modern engine.

It’s an incredible hack that offers a view into how to trace, understand, and hack old electronics. Of course, if you’re keeping old built-in car bits, why not keep the carphone but connect it to your smartphone?

Closeup of the car dash with nixie tubes

Retro Future Nixie Corvair Instrument Panel

February 18, 2022 by Matthew Carlson 21 Comments

The future we know today looks very different than the one envisioned in the 60s and 70s. For starters, it has far too few Nixie tubes. An oversight [nixiebunny] wants to address with his Nixie tube instrument panel.

All the essential info is there: engine temperature, tachometer, speed, battery voltage, and even odometer. You might have noticed that there isn’t a clock. The justification that [nixiebunny] gives is that he’s always wearing his Nixie watch, so a clock in his car seems redundant. There is also a gap in the panel to allow an oil pressure display. Corvairs are known for throwing belts next to the oil sender, so any attached sensor needs to be designed well and thought through. A Teensy receives engine telemetry data (no OBDII port to hook into — GM didn’t come out with the first OBD port until the 80s) from the engine bay. The data is transformed into SPI data sent to the 74HC595 shift register chain via a CAT5 cable. Details are a little sparse, but we can see a custom PCB to fit the shape of the hole in the dash with the different Nixie tube footprints silkscreened on.

We love seeing Nixie tubes in unexpected places. Like this POV Nixie clock or this Nixie robot sculpture.