Dieter's
V400-G Nixie Clock

October, 18th 2005:

The first idea of this clock was a reflection of a glowing nixie tube in a black glass plate I had laying around on my workbench.
I bought a large lot of B9A tubes which are easy to mount in simple B9A sockets.

The first problem was to test that many Nixie tubes.
I first used my old B9A Nixie tube tester, which tests everything.
Ia, Ik, Ikleak, Iscr, Ua, Ub.
Yes, you need 5 meters to test a biquinary Nixie tube correct

I recognized immediately, that the B-5025 needed to be regenerated.
They don't contain mercury, so cathode poisoning is quite normal with this type.
So I decided to build a B9A Nixie tube regenerator.
You can find the description here

In the clocks I programmed a routine, to prevent the cathode poisoning

After the regeneration and the cleaning the development could start.
Here you can see the bare board

You know, biquinary nixie tubes need anode and cathode drivers.
I decided to take Supertex-chips for this purpose.
As in all my clocks I didn't want to mux the tubes.
The non-mercury tubes (B-5025, NL-5025) have the benefit to run with very low current and supply voltage.
Here you'll find some pictures of the equipped board:

The SMPS is very small as you can see.
It remains nearly hand-hot with the 5025s and gets little warm with the ZM1030/ ZM1032 types.
The smooth working prototype was born.

With the B-5025 tubes:

With the ZM1032 tubes:



First test run with the B-5025 tubes:

First test run with the ZM1032 tubes:

It worked perfectly with very low temperature and noise.
You can read the features of this clock in the users manuals:

Manual_V400_English_V1.11.pdf
Manual_V400_German_V1.11.pdf

The housing is made of high grade materials.
The bottom plate is made of anodized aluminium
The frame is massive cherry wood.
The top plate is massive grinded black glass.
Here you see a picture of case top:



After all tests the series could start....



Just guess how many tubes are mounted here ;-)

Well ... at last here some impressions of the finished clock:

These clocks are sold out already!
You can buy another Chronotronix clock here!
Thanks for reading!

Back to Dieter's Nixie Tube Page

eMail to Dieter
Disclaimer
Impressum