![]() It was going to be based on the CD47, which many had heard of, but few had seen. He was going to capture and tame the dragons which gave the light to the glowing tubes, and force them back into their glass prisons. You might want to turn down the volume before clicking on these - the soundtrack is quite loud: Operation of the clockĪ long time ago, on a Forum far away, a young and enthusiastic conjurer announced that they were going to make a new Nixie. Here are some videos from the the makers of the EleksTube IPS. "A picture says a thousand words" and a video says ten times more than that. It would be nice to be able to upload more clock faces at the same time. Hopefully they will in a future firmware update. It uses an ESP32, but there is no indication that it uses either WiFi or BlueTooth. They could have made their USB-C connectors play nice with USB3.0 power supplies and still work with USB-2 power supplies. I especially like that it is configurable, even allowing you to upload your own images, and I am very pleased it uses the DS3231 to maintain accurate time. The packaging, the enclosure, and the clock faces that are included all speak to a well thought out product that is a nice addition to my collection. So hit the upload image button (the middle one) and wait for the clock to reboot. These are the buttons, from left to right they say: ‘ Compile a custom image’, ‘ Upload IMG’, and ‘ The currently selected style is:’ Your uploaded image will be in the third slot called DIY. Select the image you want to use, hit the middle button and wait for the clock to reboot. Make sure you select the correct serial port from the drop down. You can rename it if you want, but you don’t need to. Then you can run the uploader application called 图库上传工具.exe. I had to remove the Chinese characters to get this to run and I had also had to rename the parent folder to just use characters from the Roman alphabet. First download the software from here – it is all in Chineseįirst you need to install the device driver, which is named CH340 驱动.exe. To do this you need to connect the clock to a PC running Windows 10. The promotional video makes it pretty clear that you can modify the clock images. Yes I dislike push button interfaces generally, but as I say, having display screens available does make it a lot easier. The designers have used the displays to good advantage in implementing the menu system, so you could almost forego the instructions, and at least there is some chance that I will be able to drive this after a few months, unlike most Nixie clocks that require you to memorize a labyrinthine menu structure – with each clock being different than the next. ![]() I won’t go into details about how to use them – the clock comes with an instruction sheet that explains that. There are four buttons at the back of the enclosure mounted on the top. The displays themselves are around 25mm high. ![]() The digit height seems to be comparable with IN-14 nixie tubes, so around 18mm. The default characters are what I assume to be renders of an ideal nixie tube, and they look very nice. This is an extremely accurate, temperature compensated chip, and I’m glad to see they used this and not the DS1307. The time is maintained using a battery-backed RTC chip – the DS3231, so it will maintain the time even if power is lost. This clock uses very little power, the adapter is just 0.2A at 5V, so any source of USB power would be enough. A regular USB-C power adapter and cable don’t work – the adapter doesn’t recognize the clock – so you have to use a USB-A to USB-C cable like the one provided. The clock comes alive as soon as it is connected to power using the provided USB power adapter and cable – though the socket on the clock is USB-C, the USB adapter is USB-A. The case has a solid feel to it, and the screens fit very snuggly into their sockets, while the glass tubes also fit with a fairly tight tolerance. ![]() I like the decision to make the electronics visible, and I like the use of copper masking and ENIG plating to provide decoration of the PCB – the gold and black together look very classy. It would be one thing having the idea, but that idea is well with this clock. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |