Nixie Tube Clock ‘Halo’
Issue 3 (01 Nov 2018)
www.pvelectronics.co.uk
- 3 -
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1
About the clock
Nixie clock type ‘Halo’ is a compact design with all components and tubes
mounted on a single PCB. The efficient use of board space is achieved by using a
multiplex design to drive the display tubes. Two high-voltage binary-to-decimal
decoder ICs (K155ID1) are required, driving the six tubes in groups of three.
Compatibe tube types are Z560M, Z5600M, ZM1020, ZM1022, GN-4 and
equivalant tubes. These are front view Nixie tubes with a digit height of typically
15.5mm. A separate PCB is used for IN 4 tubes with a digit height of 18mm.
1.2
Clock Features
Nixie clock type ‘Halo’ has the following features:
- Hours, Minutes and Seconds display
- 12 or 24 hour modes
- Date display in either DD.MM.YY or MM.DD.YY format
- Alarm, with programmable snooze period
- Programmable date display each minute
- Attractive LED tube lighting
- Uses a Quartz Crystal Oscillator as the timebase
- Optional DCF / MSF / GPS synchronisation with status indicator LED
- Supercapacitor backup. Keeps time during short power outages
- Simple time setting using two buttons
- Programmable leading zero blanking
- Five programmable neon colon settings (Flashing AM/PM indication, illuminated
AM/PM indication, both flashing, both on, both off)
- Maintains time during setup mode, eg. When changing between Standard Time
and Daylight Savings Time
- Seconds can be reset to zero to precisely the set time
- Programmable night mode - blanked or dimmed display to save tubes or
prevent sleep disturbance
- Separate modes for colon neons during night mode
- Standard or cross-fading change of digits
- ‘Slot Machine’ cathode poisoning prevention routine
- All user preferences stored to non-volatile memory
