Lixie Clock with colons and ESP8266 (ESP-12E)

I already own some real nixie clocks and so want to have a lixie looking and acting as similar as possible like the nixies.

So, based on Folkers lixie digit, I created digit positions for colons and used an ESP8266-Module ESP-12E for control to have a webinterface, can retrieve the time over NTP (no separate RTC-module necessary) and to be able to realize a smooth digit change.

Additionally I created connectors to connect the digits and endpieces to let the sides look better.

For the digits itself I used cast acrylic because here the engraved lines are more frosted than in extruded acrylic and the numbers become brighter therefore. Unfortunately cast acrylic has massive thickness tolerances. So my acrylic sheets are between 2.2 and 2.5 mm thick instead of 2.0mm. Ofcourse these digits did not fit into the shades. So I added different shade-plates with wider holes to be able to use these number plates.

The engraved lines looks better if they are engraved from the back side of the plate. So I mirrored the numbers to do that.

The current state of the firmware and the webinterface and its usage is to see in this video: https://youtu.be/9bHxMQD_vJw

The firmware for this clock is available on github (in german too, sorry)

The software allows to use the clock without colons. If you don't use colon digits I recommend to use the wider connector variant at the colons positions to optical separate hours, minutes and seconds.

Print Settings

Notes:

For the parts with 4mm thickness I used two stacked parts cutted out of 2mm sheets. So the edges look better.

Category: Electronics