Maker Joshua Coleman has been diving into the world of Nixie tubes, however what he is created is not your widespread or backyard desktop clock — making use, as a substitute, of non-numeric tubes all too usually discarded by Nixie fanatics.
“[This is] a easy construct that I did which cleverly makes use of the plentiful IN-7 symbolic Nixie tube to make one thing a bit of extra fascinating,” Coleman explains of his creation. “These tubes are plentiful as a result of most individuals simply need quantity Nixie tubes for clocks and different tasks that require numeric digits. Nonetheless, with some intelligent rearrangement of one of many symbols we are able to eke out the phrase ‘MAKE’ from these tubes — and as I facility a maker house, I felt it becoming that this phrase might be wrangled out of some outdated tubes meant for different functions.”
Makers the world over shall be conversant in the basic Nixie tube, a show know-how relationship again to the Nineteen Fifties during which a vacuum tube holds a wire-mesh anode related to a number of stacked cathodes. By working energy by means of solely one of many cathodes, you possibly can choose which of the stack illuminates in a cheery glow — and, usually, that is the numbers zero by means of 9.
The tubes Coleman has been utilizing, although, are much less in style: moderately than the extra broadly relevant numerical digits, the Gazotron IN-7 tube was designed to be used in multimeters and different measurement instruments — providing symbols, moderately than digits. With the stacked cathodes formed to ship the symbols +, -, Ω, к, П, m, M, A, V, they’re understandably much less in style than the numeric variations, however that does not imply they can be utilized for functions the producer had by no means supposed.
The IN-7 tubes had been initially designed for multimeters, to go alongside the extra widespread numeric tubes. (📷: Joshua Coleman)
Coleman’s hack: makes use of the M, A, к, and m symbols, however turning the ultimate tube 90 levels — turning the milli image right into a considerably stylized capital E. All collectively, the tubes now spell MAKE, housed in a chassis of laser-cut acrylic and pushed by a customized home-etched PCB with a 555 timer and adjustable pulse pace through a potentiometer.
The venture is detailed in full within the video above and on Coleman’s YouTube channel.