Collection Of Nixie Bar Graphs Bump To The Beat

November 5, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

This VU meter uses Nixie tubes as the display. There are a total of fourteen IN-13 bar graph tubes that map out the audio spectrum. The build uses purely hardware for the display; no microcontroller processing, or dedicated VU-meter chips were used.

Input begins with a dual Op-Amp along with a pair of potentiometers which allow the left and right channels to be balanced. Both channels are then each split into seven signals, which explains the layout of tubes seen above. Each signal is then fed through a voltage divider to envelope the output between 0V and 6V. There is also a low-pass filter to handle sudden volume spikes which don’t work well with the nixies. But as shown in the video after the break, all that work has paid off. Thr clip gives us a look at the green protoboards which host all of this filtering hardware. You’ll want to turn the volume down for the first couple of demonstrations which use a sweep to test the system.

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Beautifully Crafted Geiger Counter A Must If You Live In A Hot Zone

September 8, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Have a little class when you’re screening for radioactive particles. You can follow the example which [Moustachenator] has set with this gorgeous Geiger counter case.

The business end includes the same Geiger tube we see in all of these projects, but he took the time to solder together a tidy circuit board and housed it in an acrylic tube. it connects to the base unit using a springy telephone handset cord. The laser cut walnut enclosure offers plenty of room for the ATX power supply hidden inside. This feeds the Arduino which runs the system, and provides a powerful source for the Nixie tubes which serve as the display. The attention to detail when it came time to assemble the case is what lends an antique look to the project, even though everything was built from the ground up. Check out the video after the break to see a brief demonstration.

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Nixie Tubes Live In A Cool Box

November 13, 2010 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

This set of four Nixie tubes display the number of people following bildr on Twitter. That’s neat; it uses an Arduino and some open source driver boards. But what caught out eye is the enclosure. The image above shows only half, but when assembled it’s a nice little cube that keeps the insides safe. This was laser cut using the Ponoko service and kicks off a design contest. Come up with the best idea for using 4 Nixies, their drivers, and $50 worth of Ponoko’s services and they’ll give you the materials to make it happen.