Warm Tube Clock
Assembly Instructions for the „IN-16 Nixie shield“
Document Version: 2011-01-05
www.elektronika.ba
-18-
Step 12
To solder the IN-16 Nixie tubes, you need some patience. This is a final step, but don’t rush it, take
your time. If you solder these glass tubes incorrectly or crooked, it is very hard to fix the problem
because it is pretty impossible to re-heat all pins of the tube in order to bend or twist it in place.
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1. First off, you need to have the Nixie tubes’ plastic
bottom drilled with a ~4mm drill in centre. This hole will
go over the RGB LED so that the LED can shine through
this plastic and into the glass tube.
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2. Now you need to cut two leads of a Nixie tube. These
are for the IN-16’s dots. This IN-16 Nixie tube has two
dots, one on the left and the other on the right of the
digit. Since we are not using these dots and there is no
hole on the PCB for them, we must cut them off. We
won’t cut them all the way to the glass, but only the piece
that sticks out of the plastic bottom. This way we can re-
use these dots, sometimes in future when and if you ever
decide to disassemble the IN-16 Nixie shield PCB.
Be careful not to cut any of the digit-leads of Nixie tube,
or the Anode pin! This would render the tube useless and
be a terrible waste!
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3. After you clipped of those two unused dot leads, simply
put back the plastic bottom under the Nixie, and place it
on the PCB through the holes. This step requires a bit of
patience so take your time and do it right.
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4. After “threading” the leads through the PCB, it is time
to do some soldering. First start of by soldering the Anode
pin, since it is in the middle. After soldering it, flip back the
PCB and straighten the glass tube. After making sure it
stands straight, flip the PCB and solder one more pin of
your choice. Now flip the PCB back up and see if the tube
is straight. If not, you can re-solder that last lead you just
soldered and correct the tube. Use this method to solder
the remaining leads (pins) of this, and every remaining
Nixie tube.
5. Congratulations, you are all done!
