> It is one of the socketed arduinos. Actually, this is my second one > that was fried! > As these chips aren't sold around here, I have to order them online. > Ebay sellers from china happen to have the cheapest offers - got mine > for $7 incl. shipping!
I used to get mine from Adafruit or Sparkfun: http://www.adafruit.com/products/123 http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10524 They're less than $7, but shipping isn't free. However, if you're buying more than a few chips, you break even pretty fast, and shipping is ever so much faster. You're also less likely to get flaky or counterfeit chips that can fail if you give them a harsh glance. However, I use enough of 'em that I got a programmer and now just buy tubes of blank chips from Digikey and burn the bootloaders myself. If I weren't currently between orders, I'd offer to burn a few and just send 'em to you. > The idea to test the nixies controls with 5 volts is great. Its just > that I will have a greater resistor on the anode (in my case any > resistor at all), because it is then directly controlled. I can get a > good brightnes and current that way, but it doesn't help me find out > the resistors needed when multiplexing. If you have decent brightness when not multiplexing, you should have at least some visibility when multiplexing, and can go from there. > Also, what do you think about a clap-on clock? Is it really necessary, > or can I get something like 10 years out of my nixies when multiplexed > like this? I like the clap-on idea. And yes, your nixies will last much longer that way. > And yeah, DO I, or do I NOT read the average current and the RMS > voltage readings on the multimeter when measuring sine waves, pulses > and such? Just so I know to properly calculate the peak current. It's a bear to get right. If you have a peak-reading meter, that'll give you the peak current directly. If you have a true RMS meter, you'll have to calculate the duty cycle, and then apply the RMS transform backwards to get the actual peak voltage. If you don't have a true RMS meter, you can't do it directly. However, you can do it indirectly by making your own peak detector circuit with a diode, capacitor, and resistor, and then measuring the resulting easy-to-measure DC voltage. - John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
