“Lupi-Nixie” DCF77 clock finally finished!
The last months i was partly working on a nixie clock design. The hardware itself is nothing special, but I think it’s a very fine piece of work (at least the electronics). The mechanics aren’t that good… but I guess that’s not possible to see from my crappy pictures. I still want to get a new cam 
The name of the clock somehow shows my lack of creativity… :-/
Some infos about the clock:
- 6x IN-14 Nixie tube
- 2x Standard neon bulb
- ATmega16 microcontroller – the only “intelligent” IC on the board, all other ICs are discrete transistors and a linear regulator
- Completely built with SMD technology parts (just a few parts are through hole)
- DCF77 receiver module (the clock has no controls for setting the time)
Problems with the clock is the aluminium casing. It looks very nice, but it reduces the quality of reception… Maybe it’s a good idea to put the receiver outside of the clock in a plastic casing – but I want the clock to be 1 unit.
I will set up a seperate site for the clock once I have better pictures and the firmware is in a state that’s worth to be released (until now a few parts are missing, like smooth transitions between the numbers). The circuit is really simple, it’s an extremely cheap and simple design, but building the clock is a little bit complicated because of the small SMT components.
The ATmega decodes the DCF77 signal, keeps track of the time, controls the multiplexing of the Nixie tubes and regulates the high voltage power supply (voltage can be trimmed with an SMT trimmer pot).
Here is the finished clock in operation:
Here again:
The clock without the casing…
