{"id":2416,"date":"2016-07-21T01:50:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T01:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2016-07-21T01:50:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T01:50:38","slug":"about-that-kickstarter-project-i-mentioned-a-while-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/21\/about-that-kickstarter-project-i-mentioned-a-while-back\/","title":{"rendered":"About that kickstarter project I mentioned a while back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Way way back in 2012, when I made the first post about the nixie chessboard, I said &#8216;This developed as a spinoff from the hardware and controllers I\u2019m designing for a range of nixie clocks and watches as a \u2018simple\u2019 project that wouldn\u2019t need much software to complete it.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Just over four years later I&#8217;ve finally finished the first of the nixie clocks that inductive power technology was intended for and you can see why losing the power cable was essential:<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive-video-wrap clr\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1IftoBtdytI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Power is coupled from a coil in the levitation base to another wrapped around the base of the floating case in exactly the same way as the original 2012 chess pieces. It&#8217;s rectified and used to power the tubes directly, with a very small amount being reduced to 3.6V to feed the logic and LEDs.<\/p>\n<p>The base communicates with the floating display using an infrared LED to transmit the time and display settings commands. I did use serial data encoded on the PWM signal used to drive the induction power coil but it tuns out modulating the current through a coil mounted on top of a large magnet at 9600BPS has interesting side effects \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The clock software is almost the same as our V1 5-tube clock, modified a little where required to allow control via a Bluetooth receiver and touch switches in the base. The display mode can still switched between HH:MM, MM:SS and DD:MM by the &#8216;hand-waving&#8217; proximity detector. All the other features you&#8217;d expect are there, including the infamous &#8216;random length second&#8217; option.<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive-video-wrap clr\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xITPTrAewrQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Power is supplied from a qualty &#8216;laptop&#8217; style brick providing 12V at about 3A &#8211; much the same as supplied with the chessboard which is built into a &#8216;power pack&#8217; box along with a battery pack made up of 8x Alkaline 1.5V &#8216;AA&#8217; cells (batteries not supplied of course).<\/p>\n<p>The batteries will keep the electromagnets running for around 20-30 hours to hold the clock in place if power is lost for any reason. Although it normally draws about 5-600mA, when first floating the clock it&#8217;ll pull up to a couple of amps as the elctromagnets &#8216;pull in&#8217;, quickly dropping to it&#8217;s normal level.<\/p>\n<p>Cushioning under the floating magnet and in the base reduce the shock if the clock does drop, usually due to over-enthusiastic prodding or spinning. In all the months of testing and dozens of drops &#8211; both intentional and not, some with no cushioning in the early days &#8211; we haven&#8217;t lost a single tube.<\/p>\n<p>You can find plenty more images and videos over here on the Kickstarter itself: \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/lasermad\/time-flies-levitating-nixie-clock\"> Time flies-levitating nixie clock<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive-video-wrap clr\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zi9JwD3mPxQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Way way back in 2012, when I made the first post about the nixie chessboard, I said &#8216;This developed as a spinoff from the hardware and controllers I\u2019m designing for a range of nixie clocks and watches as a \u2018simple\u2019 project that wouldn\u2019t need much software to complete it.&#8217; Just over four years later [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasermad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}