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Open Source Russian Vacuum Fluorescent Tube Clock

Posted by kdawson on from the ice-blue dept.

ptorrone writes "Hacker extraordinaire Ladyada (whose open source hardware projects we have discussed before) has just published a complete how-to, with design document, on making your own open source Russian vacuum fluorescent clock. The vacuum fluorescent tubes aren't as dangerous as (high-voltage) Nixie tubes, and there seem to be more of them available in the world. If you're not interested in building a clock from scratch, you can also pick up a kit version. All the schematics, source code, and files are available on the project's page."

9 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It has software? by Locutus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    but it's hackable and they even saved a few bucks by using the microcontroller to create the HV to run the tube.
    The microcontroller is an atmega168, just like what's in the Arduino but I didn't see if it was straight C or Arduino code.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  2. Quite neat, actually. by John+Pfeiffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First off, LadyAda is awesome. I really don't need to say any more than that.

    I've been wanting to make something like this for a while now. A year or two ago, I bought a big box of the same old Soviet 'vacuum fluorescent indicator' tubes, but I was always having trouble working out the hardware involved, especially the power supply. Using a boost converter is a great idea which might have occurred to me if I had had any experience with them at the time. (Other projects have since taken priority)

    My enclosure design wasn't quite as...ah, 'conservative' as a nice simple laser-cut plexiglass box though :) http://media.giantpachinkomachineofdoom.com/blog/2008-06/images/clockwip3.png

    Now I'm going to have to take another try at it! :D

    --

    Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
  3. Re:It has software? by Sparr0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And what if I want to add a stopwatch or countdown timer mode to it? Or make it count in an alternate base or time system?

  4. or... by lxs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You could just rip the clock out of an old VCR.

  5. "Open Source" hardware by dangitman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure that the "Open Source" moniker has any relevance to hardware projects like this. In software, the "source code" is the actual raw material that a complied application is made of. In hardware, the "source" is physical electronic components.

    I guess you could call the freely-available plans and schematics "the source" but that doesn't make much sense, because without hardware components, you can't compile it into a working device. So the term doesn't really apply, especially as we've had freely available electronic schematics for decades, and nobody ever called them "open source." This terminology just seems to be a way to seem cool and trendy.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
    1. Re:"Open Source" hardware by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I respectfully disagree.

      RMS himself, the holy fanatic of free software, has compared swapping code to swapping recipes for cooking.

      Open source and by extension free software is about unrestricted access to the instructions for making something. If this something is a computer program, a piece of hardware, a meal, a knitted sweater or a bottle rocket is irrelevant.

      Granted, the term open source as understood by this community is most often applied to software. But the open source model can be successfully applied to any instructions that can be shared and improved upon. I dare you to dig a little, there is a lot more of this "open source" stuff out there than software.

      --
      .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  6. Oh come on, get a clue. by Viol8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I had a digital watch in 1979 that could do a stopwatch and day of the week. Do you honestly think it had a programmed CPU in it? It was all hardwired TTL logic on a single chip. You can do quite a lot with hardware alone - ask the creators of Pong.

    1. Re:Oh come on, get a clue. by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microcontroller? about a buck
      Open source clock firmware? free
      1970s era TTL clock chips? good luck finding those (and the displays they're designed to drive) on eBay...


      You can do a lot with hardware alone, it's just not usually an efficient use of time, board space, power, or money anymore.

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
  7. Re:It has software? by node+3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's called a schematic or circuit diagram. It isn't "the source."

    It's not the source *code*.

    There are "open source" beers and colas. This is in that same vein. Making a big fuss over the word "source" is a bit silly.