NIXIE Clock Case!

Hurrah! The laser cut acrylic for my NIXIE tube clock case arrived this morning, and amazingly all the parts fit together nicely. The screw holes even matched up with the PCBs!

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, and I can finally say the nixie clock project is finished. I definitely learned a lot for the next clock – like use the RTC with an onboard crystal! I’m thinking of perhaps making a wordclock.

You can check out the Inkscape files I sent to Ponoko for manufacture here (they are released under CC BY-SA 3.0 if you are interested).

In unrelated news, design on revision four of my motor controller is nearing completion, so hopefully the thing will be flying soon!

6 Responses to “NIXIE Clock Case!”

  1. Looks really nice! I know you’re in the UK (im in US) but where do you get your PCBs made? the black looks so nice!

    -Matt

    Matt said this on February 5th, 2010 at 5:17 am

  2. Thanks! The PCBs for this were made by Gold Phoenix (http://goldphoenixpcb.biz) as an entire panel, which was the cheapest way for me at the time. They are pretty fast and have a decent price for single panels, plus the PCBs are perfectly good quality.

    Random said this on February 5th, 2010 at 4:00 pm

  3. looks excellent! Could you tell me where do you get the laser cut acrylic at? Btw, for PCB’s you can try http://www.pcbinternational.com. I find their quality better than gold phoenix ~ 100 square inches for $94 plus your choice of any soldermask/silkcreen color and free e-test.

    Jason said this on March 5th, 2010 at 11:07 pm

  4. For single runs, BatchPCB.com is great.
    They combine the PCBs onto a panel which they send to Goldphoenix for manufactering, much cheaper than having a complete panel made for yourself.
    Lead times are 4-6 weeks though

    –Nathan

    Nathan Zadoks said this on April 6th, 2010 at 5:04 pm

  5. Nice looking box. How is it held together? Friction fit?

    Alan Parekh said this on June 21st, 2010 at 8:33 am

  6. It’s not really “held together” so much as the lid keeps the walls falling outwards due to the holes cut in it, and then the rest is just gravity – the top can be taken off and it will mostly fall apart. This hasn’t been a problem so far though, it pretty much sits static.

    Random said this on June 21st, 2010 at 10:19 pm