tube

112 Articles

Tube Prototyping Station

November 20, 2009 by 16 Comments

[Gio] enjoys using vacuum tubes in his projects. He designs the circuits using a CAD program but was finding that there is no substitute for actually building a prototype before heading to a final design. To make this process easier, he built his own tube prototyping station.

At the top of the board he’s got three different sizes of tube sockets with the pins from each wired as common. The nine pins from the sockets break out to a terminal strip where they can be interfaced with a solderless breadboard. For added versatility he’s included terminals to tap into some RCA jacks, as well as a 100 kOhm variable resistor. We’d bet this is not something that you can find ready-made, but it sure does look a whole lot better than a workbench full of components alligator-clipped together.

Tube Amplifier In A PSU

September 12, 2009 by 17 Comments

tube_amp_in_psu

[Niclas] sent us his home made tube amplifier. For the case he used a computer power supply unit, took out the guts and replaced them with the amplifier board. He based this build off of an existing design but took a more minimalist approach. The wooden face plate has an on/off switch, an audio jack, and volume control. Apparently, the tubes are floating loose inside of the case. We’d recommend a more secure mounting method for these delicate parts.

Single Tube Nixie Clock

September 3, 2009 by 20 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-7QAWshEXo]

This single tube nixie clock cought our eye today. After receiving an IN-8 tube from a friend, [Trax] wanted to find some project to show it off.  He decided on an art piece that doubles as a clock. Tastefully mounted in a simple wooden box with a pretty inlay, the tube is lit from below with a green LED that pulses every second. A single button, located on the back, out of view is pressed to request the time. You can see the time being displayed on the video above. To see the guts and read about how he’s using the PIC16F84’s built in clock to keep track of time, check out his site. Even though this is a Nixie, it reminds us of the Decatron kitchen timer we saw recently.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Open-Frame Digital Clock

August 26, 2009 by 13 Comments

numitron22

Here’s an interesting project from several years ago. The clock design itself isn’t too noteworthy, but the construction is definitely inspired. You’ll notice that there is no breadboard or PCB, the frame actually is the circuit. The tubes he’s using are Numitron tubes,  which aren’t as high voltage as Nixies or even VFDs.  This means that there is only 12V maximum going through the exposed rails. He discusses some possible future upgrades such as LED or Nixie or VFD, but since this project is a few years old, who knows if he is still working with it.

[thanks Agent420]

Victorian Nixie Tube Clock

July 14, 2008 by 8 Comments


[John Clarke Mills] has pieced together this tastefully done Victorian style Nixie tube clock. He picked up a kit from nixietube.com and an old clock off of eBay. A little bit of elbow grease and solder later, he has this very nice mantle piece. Well done.

For those unfamiliar, a Nixie tube is used for displaying numbers or letters. They are a glass tube, filled with a gas (usually neon). There are metal structures inside that glow when electricity is applied. First widely used in the early sixties, Nixies were pretty much replaced when LED technology got cheap.

We noticed that nixietube.com was down, so you might also check TubeClock.com and neonixie.com for kits.

If you’re looking for more inspiration, read about the Nixie counter clock, Russian vfd, and the 6502 driven Nixie clock all previously on Hack a Day.

[via Retro Thing]

Tube Amp Monitor

June 23, 2008 by 5 Comments


Sparkfun contributor [Pete] really loves tube amps, but he’s a very safety-conscious guy who doesn’t like being electrocuted. This is a problem, since tube amps are usually very high voltage, and a small mistake can be fatal. To deal with this voltage issue, he built a tube amp with a control system built around a 6DOF v3 controller board. The control system is there mainly in case of a failure, automatically shutting off the high voltage transformer in any such event. It has the added benefit of filtering any 60Hz noise from getting into the audio, which happened before he installed the control system.

In addition to regulating power, the controller board also monitors bias points in the output tubes and displays its diagnostics on an LCD. Aside from getting great sound from the tube amp, [Pete] made it look great too, installing colored LEDs under the tubes. We love his design: just because safety comes first it doesn’t mean cool-factor can’t come in a close second.