Inspiration
I've wanted to do a few things for a while and am worried if I wait to do each of them in in a focused, all-by-itself project I'll never get to it. So I'm going to try for including each of them as elements in this project:
- Nixie tubes
- Wireless/Inductive Charging
- Voltage regulator design
- RF PCB design
What is it?
I want to build a Nixie tube desk clock, the digits of which are held on by magnets and therefore powered wirelessly from the base station. The base station voltage rails will be regulated by circuits made out of discrete components; this base station will have some brain that gets the time from the network (NTP or something) and wirelessly commands the digits to display the correct time.
Reading Materials
I've found some awesome Nixie stuff at Sphere Research's Nixie Tube Page. This site is a treasure trove of good stuff so I might be back here a lot. They sell a boost converter for the Nixie tubes (which run at +170Vdc), tubes, accessories. I think I'll have to buy a couple tubes and regulator pretty soon to just play around with.
To make it a bit more modern, my friend sent me to cathodecorner which has awesome watches like the one Steve Wozniak famously wears, I definitly encourage you to check out the full page at cathodecroner. The pdf I link to goes into detail about what Nixie tubes are and how they work which helps you understand what each circuit element is doing as well.
Lastly, and I've linked to this guy before, I went back to David McIntosh's project site which explains in amazing detail how wireless charging works. I was going to use this for another speaker project but I think the Nixie tube is perfect for it.
That should be enough to wet my appetite. We'll see what I learn from David McIntosh and Cathode corner, and I might buy some preliminary stuff from Sphere Research as well. See you next time.