Nixie Tube Clocks
I had never heard of Nixie Tube Clocks until yesterday. I’m in love, but I’m far too cheap to buy them. I can’t bear to spend three hundred dollars on a timepiece when I can buy a clock just as accurate (if not as steampunky) for ten bucks.
Here is a great blog entry with links to a bunch of places that sell Nixie Tube Clocks:
The neon tubes, when combined with blackened bronze, silver chrome, and stunning woods, become an unusual blend of science and art, making a functional item a pretty piece of home decor.
Here is a video of a clock in action:
If you don’t know what nixie tubes are, here’s a link to Wikipedia:
A nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying numerals or other information. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes. In most tubes, the cathodes are shaped like numerals. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and often a little mercury and/or argon, in a Penning mixture.
Although it resembles a vacuum tube in appearance, its operation does not depend on thermionic emission of electrons from a heated cathode. It is therefore called a cold-cathode tube (a form of gas filled tube), or a variant of neon lamp. Such tubes rarely exceed 40 °C (104 °F) even under the most severe of operating conditions in a room at ambient temperature.
They look awesome and there are less expensive options if you are able to solder electronic kits. For me, I’ll just have to admire them from afar.