Thank you David! It is indeed a lot of work for one person, as i'm sure you know. This project is heavily inspired by the successful Cathode Corner watch!
The software features will be focused heavily around power saving when the display is off, in addition to using the bluetooth radio as the primary user interface. As you've mentioned, the biggest challenge with a nixie tube display is the ability to convey complex information. That is why I've opted to use the nordic bluetooth SoC; the menu system can be built around a nice GUI on a smartphone or similar device, and all of the configuration settings can be broadcasted to the watch over bluetooth. The user can change options related to wakeup modes, display effects (both nixies and RGB leds), touch button setup, power management, or view battery status. I have a few modes of operation in mind. In order to save power as much as possible, the power for 3V3 logic devices can be switched on and off using IO from the MCU. The 5V0 devices, supplied by the main 2 amp 5V boost (TPS61230DRCT) which powers the HV supply, LEDs, and logic level shifter, can be shut down by the mcu when the display is not active. It will be strongly encouraged to use the accelerometer to wake up the device. The ADXL362 is a programmable accelerometer that features a 270 nA motion activated wake-up mode. Using this, nearly all of the other peripherals can be shut off, and the 52832 can be put into a "system off" mode that consumes 300 nA with no ram retention, waiting to wake up from the accelerometer input. If the user instead chooses to use the capacitive touch to wake up, the CAP1293 controller has a 50 uA standby mode which monitors 1 of the 3 capacitive touch inputs. This means that current consumption is 185 times higher than using the ADXL362 and turning the CAP1293 off. The user will have a choice to use both or either as a wakeup and display trigger. As far as information to be displayed on the nixies themselves, I wanted to include options for both time (12/24 hr), date, battery status, and possibly an "acknowledge" display routine whenever the user sends a wireless command from a connected bluetooth device. For the decimal points, I planned to use them more for visual effect when displaying time. I want to include a few display effect options in the soft menu, such as crossfading, slot machine effects, and using the decimal points as a seconds counter (either blinking, or in other modes such as a "ping-pong" effect where it will bounce or scroll continuously across the tubes). A lot of what I can and cannot include will be limited to the 512k flash on the 52832. Bluetooth stacks use up a lot of memory fast, but hopefully using the Zephyr RTOS (which is supposed to be optimized for resource constrained devices), I can manage to get the most out of the internal storage. I've already identified a few mistakes on the rev1 board, but I have a lot of firmware development challenges I can still tackle regardless. The firmware is shaping up to be even more monumental of a task than the hardware design. On Sat, Oct 3, 2020 at 1:08 PM David Forbes <[email protected]> wrote: > Kevin, > > That's quite a project! It has a lot of processing power. I can tell that > you've put a lot of thought into the design. > I'm curious about the plans for software and features, since you mentioned > that you haven't written any of it yet. > The big limiting factor of Nixie tubes in a feature-laden device, as I see > it, is the limited display ability. Not having any letters makes it hard to > convey information. The decimal points are better than nothing, but require > knowledge of what they're indicating. > That's why my Cathode Corner Nixie watches only display the time. > Please keep us posted on your progress. > > > > On Fri, Oct 2, 2020, 12:01 PM Kevin A. <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Just posted my first update with the initial hardware build, schematics, >> and more pictures here: >> >> >> https://neonkev.com/2020/10/02/la-piece-de-resistance-nixie-tube-smart-watch/ >> >> >> -- > 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 [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CAPbqtvdoDpmmjCrGS4nmssnWHvhUjLRRWmJu6mk5ThffsSXfCA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CAPbqtvdoDpmmjCrGS4nmssnWHvhUjLRRWmJu6mk5ThffsSXfCA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CALcVLK%2B0r2g4erCqMZH5sjRs4tOPXtUuz8%2BM0UWEAt13g2cptg%40mail.gmail.com.
