6 Mar
2007
6 Mar
'07
7:49 p.m.
At 07:21 PM 3/6/2007 -0500, you wrote:
On 3/6/07, Steven Canning <cannings at
earthlink.net> wrote:
My great treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies. I have five, or maybe
six of them. As you may know, these are "British Flag" displays that can do
any number, letter, and some punctuation. They're 4.55 inches high,
excluding the pins, and the characters are 2.5 inches high.
They have 15 segments each making designing for them a challenge. What I
want it a device I can build with a PIC or two that will display the time
and maybe the temp, plus a scrolling alpha numeric message uploaded to it
via a USB port. I see USB port boards for PIC use all over the place, but
I'm fairly daunted by the prospect of designing a circuit flexible enough
to drive 6x15 segment nixies. Maybe a character generator in addition to
the main PIC??
The other thing I want is a WWV decoder so it sets itself. Yes, I know I
could periodically set it over a USB port, but I want it to be self
sufficient if no PC is handy. The only suggestions I've gotten so far are
to cut up a cheapo atomic clock from a big-box store and salvage the 1 PPS
output from it. That might help me keep it accurate, but won't help me set
it automagically.
Others have suggested a GPS eval board. Those are certainly cheap enough
and some require no more than power and spit out NMEA strings the minute
you power them up. But GPS won't work indoors and certainly not in the
basement.
Still looking,
-Tom
-----
445. [Humor] I just got skylights put in my place. The people who live
above me
are furious. --Steven Wright
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531
I think the multiplexing issue has been well
addressed ( no pun intended )
so for those who would like to mux their nixies may I suggest checking into
the following IC's for that purpose: 7441, 74141 and the Soviet KM1551 ( Das
Vadanya ! ) .
I knew about the 7441 and the 74141 (such things are well covered in
Don Lancaster's "TTL Cookbook"). I did _not_ know what the Russian
part number is. I'll have to see if I can scare up one or two of
those. I was thinking of breaking my large strip of Nixies into a
clock or three. 
6 Mar
6 Mar
8:44 p.m.
On 3/6/07, Tom Peters <tpeters at mixcom.com> wrote:
The other thing I want is a WWV decoder so it sets
itself.
Did you see this one yet?
http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/wwvb.html
"Hacking a WWVB Radio Controlled Analog Clock movement.
And build a WWVB Radio Controlled Nixie Clock!"
"Overall clock error is less than 100ms from the WWVB clock
transmission. This clock automatically adjusts for daylight savings
time, and leap seconds."
10:26 p.m.
My great treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies.
[...]
They have 15 segments each making designing for them a
challenge.
15? I'd na?vely expect to see eight segments radiating from the
centre, to the corners and the centres of the edges, and eight more
segments around the edge, for a total of 16. Are two of them joined or
something?
What I want it a device I can build with a PIC or two
that will
display the time and maybe the temp, plus a scrolling alpha numeric
message uploaded to it via a USB port.
Since you'll have to have a host on the other end of the USB line,
maybe just upload a stream of 16-bit values (well, 15-bit values, but
padding them to 16 bits each is probably easist) and let the host deal
with character generation?
I see USB port boards for PIC use all over the place,
but I'm fairly
daunted by the prospect of designing a circuit flexible enough to
drive 6x15 segment nixies. Maybe a character generator in addition
to the main PIC??
Why bother? Why not just generate 15-bit values for display, rather
than generating 7-bit values that mean something to a human looking at
an ASCII table and then contriving external hardware to convert them to
the 15-bit values the hardware actually needs?
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
7 Mar
7 Mar
12:38 a.m.
Not nixies, but a question--are there any 7- or 15-segment EL
displays commerically available?
Cheers,
Chuck
2:25 a.m.
On Mar 7, 2007, at 12:38 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Not nixies, but a question--are there any 7- or
15-segment EL
displays commerically available?
There's a 16-segment VFD, the IV-17, that shows up on eBay fairly
frequently. They're pretty nice.
http://www.neurotica.com/misc/multiseg-vfd.jpg
http://www.neurotica.com/misc/multiseg-vfd-powered.jpg
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
12:10 p.m.
On 7 Mar 2007 at 2:25, Dave McGuire wrote:
There's a 16-segment VFD, the IV-17, that shows
up on eBay fairly
frequently. They're pretty nice.
They're nice, but I was really wondering about EL--one of the
"forgotten" technologies. I remember being fascinated with EL back
in the 60's; it seemed full of promise. I recently picked up a pack
of EL night-lights and found that they were pretty much the same
thing as the one I had 40 years ago.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:16 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 7 Mar 2007 at 2:25, Dave McGuire wrote:
Hmm, cost per foot of EL cable looks very good too. Not sure about sheet
though (could make some interesting numerical segmented displays out of either
though).
Operable life looks pretty good. Might have to try and get hold of some of
that for experimentation - I'm not sure where in the UK you can get it though
(the handful of sites I saw were all in the US).
I don't mind using "new" technologies for things if they're actually old
:-)
There's a 16-segment VFD, the IV-17, that
shows up on eBay fairly
frequently. They're pretty nice.
They're nice, but I was really wondering about EL--one of the
"forgotten" technologies. I remember being fascinated with EL back
in the 60's; it seemed full of promise. I recently picked up a pack
of EL night-lights and found that they were pretty much the same
thing as the one I had 40 years ago.
4:18 p.m.
On 7 Mar 2007 at 14:16, Jules Richardson wrote:
Operable life looks pretty good. Might have to try and
get hold of some of
that for experimentation - I'm not sure where in the UK you can get it though
(the handful of sites I saw were all in the US).
I've got a bunch of the EL cable--it's pretty interesting.
Planar (http://www.planar.com) seems to be the only manufacturer of
EL displays--and they're not cheap.
On the other hand, there is this rather bizarre Russian website that
appears to have something to do with stealing a street sign and
hooking it to a Sinclair Z80 system:
http://www.sheppard.ru/articles/fe/radiation/index.shtml
How's your Russian? Babelfish makes complete gibberish out of it.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:30 p.m.
I've got a bunch of the EL cable--it's pretty
interesting.
Where you get?
--
--------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ ---
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- With a rubber duck, one's never alone. -- Douglas Adams, "HGTTG"
-----------
5:07 p.m.
On 7 Mar 2007 at 13:30, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Jameco has it, but I got mine a few years ago from the "cool neon"
site:
http://www.coolneon.com/
Cheers,
Chuck
I've got a
bunch of the EL cable--it's pretty interesting.
Where you get? 
5:38 p.m.
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Ikea (!) had little EL-wire toys with about a metre of EL wire and a
little battery pack that takes 2xAA batteries, all for about 2 quid
each. They had huge boxes of them. Carolyne and I bought about a dozen
between us ;-)
Loads of fun...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolynesmith/sets/72157594571071249/
Gordon
I've got a
bunch of the EL cable--it's pretty interesting.
Where you get?
4:52 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 7 Mar 2007 at 14:16, Jules Richardson wrote:
I think one of the places I came across earlier was doing it for about $1.20
per foot; that's probably easily enough to make a large single-digit segmented
display from actually (of course add HV source [1] and necessary decode logic
on top of that)
[1] Presumably there are various transistor options for switching; AC voltage
needed seems to be pretty low (in the order of 100V) at anything from 50Hz to
2KHz.
Operable life looks pretty good. Might have to
try and get hold of some of
that for experimentation - I'm not sure where in the UK you can get it though
(the handful of sites I saw were all in the US).
I've got a bunch of the EL cable--it's pretty interesting. On the other hand, there is this rather bizarre
Russian website that
appears to have something to do with stealing a street sign and
hooking it to a Sinclair Z80 system:
http://www.sheppard.ru/articles/fe/radiation/index.shtml
heh heh. And that's one big PSU:
http://www.sheppard.ru/articles/fe/radiation/laboratory-mipt-psupply-for-ge…
How's your Russian?
Largely gleaned from Hollywood movies, unfortunately ;-)
8 Mar
8 Mar
2:24 a.m.
On Mar 7, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Oh ok, I thought VF might be "close enough" for whatever you had
in mind. I really like VFDs myself. So bright & sharp.
There's
a 16-segment VFD, the IV-17, that shows up on eBay fairly
frequently. They're pretty nice.
They're nice, but I was really wondering about EL--one of the
"forgotten" technologies. I remember being fascinated with EL back
in the 60's; it seemed full of promise. I recently picked up a pack
of EL night-lights and found that they were pretty much the same
thing as the one I had 40 years ago.
They really are neat. I don't see EL technology used for much
other than backlighting nowadays, though. How is the life span of
EL? My dusty neurons seem to say that they wear out in several
years? Is that the case?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
3:30 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
They really are neat. I don't see EL technology
used for much other
than backlighting nowadays, though. How is the life span of EL? My
dusty neurons seem to say that they wear out in several years? Is that
the case?
Lots of electronic music gear used to use EL backlights. Blue or white
LEDs are the fashion now ;-)
There's a thriving trade in repair kits for the EL backlights in, oh
just about everything that used them. Some that come immediately to
mind are the Casio VZ series, older Akais (S1100 seemed particularly
bad) and E-mu EMax/Emulator II displays.
They're not expensive, and basically just consist of a new EL foil that
you put into the display.
Gordon
11:12 a.m.
On 8 Mar 2007 at 8:30, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Lots of electronic music gear used to use EL
backlights. Blue or white
LEDs are the fashion now ;-)
Yup, the ancient Casio WK-1200 keyboard that I have sitting right by
my desk uses a blue-green one. It's still plenty bright and it's got
years on the backlight.
Hmmm, got a URL for someplace selling the replacement foils?
Cheers,
Chuck
8:58 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
They really are neat. I don't see EL technology
used for much other
than backlighting nowadays, though. How is the life span of EL? My
dusty neurons seem to say that they wear out in several years? Is that
the case?
I think one site I saw was claiming 250 days of "useful" life at continuous
use and "normal" conditions. Lower power (and hence less glow) will improve
lifespan, and the stuff never actually burns out but does become dimmer over time.
(in other words for the application I had in mind I'd probably be looking at 7
hours per day use, so with some fiddling with the power [1] could expect about
3 years of life)
[1] I'm not sure whether running at lower voltage is key, or if it's changing
the frequency which changes the lifespan (or rather, how those two relate).
cheers
Jules
10:52 a.m.
On 8 Mar 2007 at 2:24, Dave McGuire wrote:
They really are neat. I don't see EL
technology used for much
other than backlighting nowadays, though. How is the life span of
EL? My dusty neurons seem to say that they wear out in several
years? Is that the case?
From what I've read, the lifetime thing's been
pretty much licked on
modern units. Planar apparently produced quite a few
full-color
displays for DOD, but then got derailed when DOD decided to adopt TFT
for displays.
The "cool neon" EL wire really does run the phosphors quite "hot" and
I've heard that they will begin dropping in brightness after a couple
hundred hours. Apparently, however, some of the white LED phosphor
technology is migrating to EL use, as I'm starting to see superbright
white wire now.
I'm surprised that Grid Compass 1101 owners haven't popped up to
volunteer that their systems use an EL displayl. How's the
brightness holding up?
Sharp apparently makes EL displays, but they're hard to find.
Here's a datasheet for a 640x480 unit:
http://www.eichler-gmbh.de/LJ64ZU51.pdf
Cheers,
Chuck
11:23 a.m.
what about my lovely babcock vacuum flourescent display?
http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/mecb/gallery/cimga0392.html
--
Mark Wickens, Mob: 07917 653012
Email: mark at wickensonline.co.uk
WWW: http://wickensonline.co.uk
3:35 p.m.
On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:23 AM, Mark Wickens wrote:
what about my lovely babcock vacuum flourescent
display?
http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/mecb/gallery/cimga0392.html
Oh that is absolutely gorgeous! Where'd you find that, and are
there any more available?
And that MECB clone is cool. I didn't know anyone had copied that
design.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
3:52 p.m.
Mark Wickens wrote:
what about my lovely babcock vacuum flourescent
display?
http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/mecb/gallery/cimga0392.html
Looks great :) I've got an 80-char by 2-line dot-matrix VF display which looks
just the same when running - it came out of a piece of early
handwriting-recognition equipment (based around a TMS9900 CPU).
Sadly I've never been able to find any kind of datasheet on the thing in order
to be able to go and use it in a project, but it sure would be nice.
7 Mar
7 Mar
3 p.m.
At 10:26 PM 3/6/2007 -0500, you wrote:
Nope. 15 segments addressable. Segments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and six form the
outside box, from top going clockwise. Two for each side, one across the
bottom (4) and top. Then the verticals (split) and horizontals. Then a
diagonal in each quadrant. Then the "cursor," a sort of flattened caret
under all the other segments. Picture an inverted V, but with a flat
instead of a point, an as wide as the other segments.
They have another tube, the 5971, that has no caret and no split center
vertical, thus 13 segments. But the 8971 and 7971 have 15.
-----
207. [Government] Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big
appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. --Ronald
Reagan
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531
My great
treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies. [...]
They have 15 segments each making designing for
them a challenge.
15? I'd na?vely expect to see eight segments radiating from the
centre, to the corners and the centres of the edges, and eight more
segments around the edge, for a total of 16. Are two of them joined or
something? What I want it
a device I can build with a PIC or two that will
display the time and maybe the temp, plus a scrolling alpha numeric
message uploaded to it via a USB port.
Since you'll have to have a host on the other end of the USB line,
maybe just upload a stream of 16-bit values (well, 15-bit values, but
padding them to 16 bits each is probably easist) and let the host deal
with character generation?
I see USB port boards for PIC use all over the
place, but I'm fairly
daunted by the prospect of designing a circuit flexible enough to
drive 6x15 segment nixies. Maybe a character generator in addition
to the main PIC??
Why bother? Why not just generate 15-bit values for display, rather
than generating 7-bit values that mean something to a human looking at
an ASCII table and then contriving external hardware to convert them to
the 15-bit values the hardware actually needs?
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
2:32 a.m.
On Mar 6, 2007, at 7:49 PM, Tom Peters wrote:
My great treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies. I
have five,
or maybe six of them. As you may know, these are "British Flag"
displays that can do any number, letter, and some punctuation.
They're 4.55 inches high, excluding the pins, and the characters
are 2.5 inches high.
Those are gorgeous tubes.
The other thing I want is a WWV decoder so it sets
itself. Yes, I
know I could periodically set it over a USB port, but I want it to
be self sufficient if no PC is handy. The only suggestions I've
gotten so far are to cut up a cheapo atomic clock from a big-box
store and salvage the 1 PPS output from it. That might help me keep
it accurate, but won't help me set it automagically.
You could obtain (or construct) a small, dumb WWVB receiver (like
one of the ones in the cheapo clocks) and pipe it into this
gentleman's design:
http://www.geocities.com/hagtronics/wwvb.html
He describes a (trivial) PIC-based design, and provides schematics
and source code.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
6341
days inactive
6342
days old
21 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
cclist＠sydex.com -
glen.slick＠gmail.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
mark＠wickensonline.co.uk -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tpeters＠mixcom.com