What the hell is a Nixie tube clock, you ask? Well, nixie tubes are cold cathode tube displays. Still no idea what I’m talking about, right? Ok. Nixie tubes are basically light bulbs with filaments shaped like numbers and letters. They were used as numerical displays in cold war era military installations as well as in the very first desk top calculators. If you weren’t alive in the 1950’s or 60’s, your only exposure to Nixie tubes was as a background prop in old sci-fi and James Bond flicks. Just last week, I saw a Nixie display in the Watchmen. I’m a nerd like that.

Made obsolete in the early 70’s by vacuum fluorescent displays and later by lcd displays, old stock Nixie tubes are now easily available to hobbyists. Over the last few years, gizmo wizards and electronics geeks have been cobbling together clocks with this old tech. And unless you could tell the difference between your ohms and your amps, your resistors from your capacitors, and weren’t afraid of possibly getting zapped by hundreds of volts, you probably weren’t thinking about making a clock of your own. The risk of failure and injury was too high. Thanks to Tubehobby.com, normal folks can now have Nixie tube clocks also.

For $99 at Tubehobby.com You can now get complete DIY Nixie clock build kits. It includes everything you need, minus a soldering gun and solder, to build a clock of your very own. If you can solder, you can build their clock.

When my kit arrived, and I opened the box, I was a little taken back by what I saw. There were about 75 little tiny electronics components, each looking like the next. I thought this kit was for normal, non-techie folks?

(Just so everyone understands, I have very little experience with building electronics kits. My build resume only includes a Mega Jolt electronic ignition system for my Mini and RC car-related soldering work.) Looking at the components, I did what every good hobbyist does before he assembles a kit, I checked to make sure my kit included all the parts listed in the instruction booklet. I realized very quickly that I couldn’t tell the difference between the 10 types of resistors included. I couldn’t figure out what a 10U capacitor was or how to tell it from the 22P capacitor. It was like I was looking down from the Empire State Building, and trying to wave at my friends at the bottom. It was impossible! Clearly, I needed to do some reading.

After 2 hours of online reading, I was ready to tackle the kit once again. Resistors have color bands that indicate their resistance. Capacitors have VERY small numbers on them that indicate their capacitance. This is one of the great things about the online revolution. Back in the stone ages, you had to have an understanding of what each of the 5 or 6 color bands meant on a resistor before you could calculate it’s resistance. Today, you only need to be able to input the color bands into an online calculator. I hate math! If I needed my calculator to build this kit, it would probably still be in my closet, unassembled.

Once I had some education under my belt, the kit went together quite well. The instructions are really only needed to help you understand the reference codes on the board, to assure you solder the right stuff in the right place. The part reference numbers are all screen printed onto the bare circuit board which makes it easier to figure out what goes where.

4 hours later, I completed the assembly of the 2 boards. I crossed my fingers, held my breath, then plugged it in. I saw no flames and no smoke! Victory! I then plugged in the tube board, and the clock lit up. I had a working Nixie tube clock! As I was marveling at my achievement, I touched the wrong part of the board and zapped myself with 170 volts! Ouch! Reminds me of my childhood…

After my fingers regained full sensation, I took the clock and placed it in a shadow box. Here is the end result. Sweet, don’t you think?

If you are interested in picking up a kit of your own, go here. The kit I assembled was the NCV2.1-14. It was $99 plus shipping.