For a 21 year old guy with no previous electronics experience, in my humble opinion, you are jumping in far far deeper than your present skill level is capable of producing any meaningful results.
First of all, you have NEVER even fired up a nixie tube yet. Nor have you studied and worked with logic gates. If you want success, the first thing to do is get a nixie tube and a 170 volt DC power supply and a 15k anode resistor, then start experimenting lighting the tube digits. Next, get a 74141 or a 7441 nixie driver IC, and connect it up to an appropriate 4-bit switch of come sort so that you can feed it binary bits at the 5 volt level, and light the tube digits. Next thing then is to switch those bits using a counter such as 74LS160. As for a nixie clock, I would strongly suggest making one that uses no processor of any sort. Use TTL or CMOS logic to run counters that drive the 74141 nixie driver ICs. A very nice nixie clock can be made using about 16 to 20 ICs. Learning electronics and learning to use digital ICs and nixie tubes requires many, many practical tests and experiments. Jumping right in cold, with no prior experience right away thinking that a complex PCB can be designed and a clock made to operate without doing any experiments to prove the fundamental concepts is THE classic recipe for failure. I can help with book recommendations, parts lists to experiment with, and experiments to do. Take it slow. Stay down at the level of reality. -Chuck On Monday, September 22, 2025 at 3:02:23 PM UTC-4 Adrian Godwin wrote: > Also, put 100n capacitors between supply (5v or 3v3) and gnd near each and > every IC. > > > On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 8:00 PM Adrian Godwin <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thanks for the pdf. Yes, the schematic wasn't usable. >> >> The first problem I've found is that SCLK and SDATA are connected to 3v3 >> and then have resistors in line. I'm pretty sure you had the right idea but >> made an error on the wiring, but if it's not obvious the resistors should >> be between 3v3 and the clk/data lines. >> >> You will likely need a pullup resistor on the light sensor., unless the >> Pi has one internally that can be enabled on analog inputs. They normally >> just measure voltages and you want to measure resistance. >> >> Overall, it's pretty good for a first try ! >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 7:48 PM Mac Doktor <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> On Sep 22, 2025, at 2:43 PM, Florian van der Dussen < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Current schematic: >>> >>> The schematic is too small to read. Please share a larger copy. >>> >>> >>> Terry Bowman, KA4HJH >>> "The Mac Doctor" >>> >>> https://www.astarcloseup.com >>> >>> "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."—Roy Batty, *Blade >>> Runner* >>> >>> -- >>> 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, visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/33D10011-0F75-49D6-81B7-8049459EDE45%40gmail.com >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/33D10011-0F75-49D6-81B7-8049459EDE45%40gmail.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, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/022b559a-12fd-4b3c-ac21-73224c815c0dn%40googlegroups.com.
