Yes, my envisioned Nixie DMM will include a frequency counter, but not fancy period or averaging functions, not much beyond maybe 40MHz.
On Saturday, 8 October 2016 16:11:05 UTC+1, Jonathan wrote: > > I too have as many clocks as I need, although I haven't made as many as > you. I have a kitchen timer, an indoor outdoor thermometer (pixies) and a > hot tub temp. display. I have an HP VOM that I have been meaning to fix. > > I have been planning to make a frequency counter. In my case I would use > it as part of a custom ham radio, nixies for frequency, neon bar graph tube > for an S meter, magic eyes for forward and reflected power, that sort of > thing. Others might use it for all sorts of purposes, like measuring RPM. > > $500 is way beyond what I can spend on a meter. :-( > > Jonathan > > > > I've been giving some serious thought recently to designing and building a > good quality 50,000 count (4 3/4 digit) Bench Digital Multimeter with a > fair few (sensible) bells and whistles, but of course with a nixie display. > It would use a standard but very capable DMM "front-end" chip to do all the > measurement, opto-isolated to a controller and then onto a direct drive > nixie display (with Volts/Amps/Ohms/Hertz symbols!) Battery or mains, USB > output (or is that input?). I am aiming for CAT IV performance by design > (but not by certification - too expensive), good accuracy as afforded by > the front end chip, and in a good quality case (likely to be the most > expensive component). I'd like to offer it both as an assemble-able kit (so > I'd presolder small SMD parts) or a fully assembled instrument. This would > be a "serious" bit of kit, not something which *looks like* it was thrown > together in a biscuit tin! I've yet to decide whether the software would > be open source, but it might be nice to let "the community" develop > additional functions in software (data logging, averaging, etc.) > > > I aim to produce a batch of maybe 50 instruments, but I really don't have > much of a clue as to the demand, out there. "It's going to depend on cost," > you say. Well, based on BOM costs so far, it is not going to come in much > (if anything) below about GBP £400 (USD $550). Yes, you could spend that on > a new meter and get guaranteed similar specs, but *it wouldn't have a > nixie display* which is of course the unique selling point. > > > It might take me around 12 months from pressing the button to a finished > product. I've looked, but there appears to be nothing else out there. > > > So what does the group think? Are we nixie nuts a very small group? Are > clocks enough? Is that price way too high? (the BOM costs means the price > can’t be much lower, for small volumes!) > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/477ef3a9-c91e-4665-a8a4-859118f25b7c%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
