d4Rk N1x13

Story

About two years ago, I got really excited about those nixie tubes and clocks (thanks to Travelers series, HBO's Chernobyl and others). I was thinking about buying one off of Etsy, but then decided to build my own one.

Unfortunately the hype dropped somewhat, and so it took me about two years now to finish the project^^

But here it is!

Non printed parts

• Nixie kit (DIY: https://gra-afch.com/catalog/diy-kit-for-nixie-tubes-clocks/diy-kit-for-nixie-tubes-clocks-in-14 or assembled: https://gra-afch.com/catalog/nixie-tubes-clock-without-cases/nixie-tubes-clocks-in-14-2*)
• Acrylic glas 5mm (https://www.plexiglas-shop.com/de/Produkte/SR0A070GT-5-00-2000-01-X.html)
• Acrylic glas tube 60/54mm (https://www.plexiglas-shop.com/de/Produkte/RO0A070GT-60-00-54-00-2000-01-X.html)
• Hex Spacer M3 5mm female, 4mm male (6x)
• (optional) DIN 912 M3x10 (6x) and DIN 934 M3 (6x), for fixing the bottom plate which didn't quite work out for me
• Filler, files and tons of sandpaper
• Superglue
• Edding 5200 permanent spray anthracite matt (2x)
• Edding 5200 permanent spray silver
• Edding 5200 permanent spray copper

*The columns between the actual Nixie tubes have to be removed and I'm not sure if the height, the tubes are soldered to the PCB fit perfectly with my design. Keep this in mind, if choosing the already assembled kit.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

FlashForge

Printer:

Creator Pro

Rafts:

Doesn't Matter

Supports:

Doesn't Matter

Resolution:

0.1 - 0.3

Infill:

10 - 30%

Filament: FilamentWorld PLA

black/white

Notes:

Basically everything was printed with 0.1 mm resolution. Only the inner parts (base-inner and base-bottom) were printed using 0.3, as they are not visible and don't need to be sanded.

Parts list

Base

• base-inner.stl (1x)
• base-front.stl (1x)
• base-back.stl (1x)
• base-side.stl (2x)
• base-bottom.stl (1x)
• base-top-socket.stl (3x)

Top cylinders

• top-base.stl (3x)
• cylinder-bottom.stl (3x)
• top-pipe.stl (6x)
• cylinder-plate-small.stl (9x)
• cylinder-plate-large.stl (6x)
• cylinder-top.stl (3x)

Stuff

• base-fan.stl (5x)
• tube-socket.stl (12x)
• base-pipe-bent.stl (8x)
• base-pipe.stl (4x)
• base-pipe-ring.stl (24x)
• button-menu.stl (1x)
• button-up-down.stl (2x)

Optional

• helper-tube-soldering (1x, helps to get the tubes straight)
• helper-tube-soldering-ring (2x, helps to get the correct/same height for all the tubes)
• helper-base-top-socket.stl (1x, helps positioning the "top-base-socket" correctly)

Post-Printing

Instructions

In the following sections I will try to go through all the single steps with you as good as I can, to explain everything you need to know, if you plan to build you very own d4Rk N1x13 clock.

If you have any questions or suggestions, on what can be improved, just let me know.

Actually I did some of those steps more than two years ago, at the time of this write up, so please bare with me if anything is missing or not perfectly correct.

GL & HF!

Base

1. Print all the parts
2. Sand "base-inner", at least the surfaces where the other parts are being attached
3. Sand the holes/cut-outs on "base-front", "base-back" and the two "base-side" parts, as it would be quite difficult to do so after glueing them to the "base-inner" part
4. Now glue those parts together, fill the gaps, and sand again to get smooth surfaces and make it look like one piece
5. Sand "base-top-socket" parts and glue them to the main base part (4.), the exact positioning is quite easy, using "helper-base-top-socket"

Electronics

1. Solder everything together (see gra-afch instructions), use "helper-tube-soldering" together with the two "helper-tube-soldering-ring" parts for soldering the nixie tubes, to get them straight and to the correct height.
2. Glue the hex spacers to the "base-bottom" part
3. Mount the nixie kit to the "base-bottom" part by using the other hex spacers (don't remember exactly which were male and female, but guess you can easily figure it out)

Top cylinders (3x)

1. Print all the parts
2. Sand everything, especially at the "top-base" parts it can be quite annoying to reach all those edges
3. Glue the top part together by stacking "cylinder-plate-small" and "cylinder-plate-large" onto "cylinder-top" in following order.
   1. "clyinder-top"
   2. "cylinder-plate-small"
   3. "cylinder-plate-large"
   4. "cylinder-plate-small"
   5. "cylinder-plate-large"
   6. "cylinder-plate-small"
4. Glue this top part (3.) onto "top-base"

Stuff

1. Print all the parts
2. Guess what?! sand all the parts^^

Note: Image shows not exactly the correct parts^^

Spray painting

1. Spray paint the base part (a solid few layers anthracite, then carefully a bit silver to make it look more metal)
2. Same for the three top cylinder parts
3. Aaaaand again for "base-fan" parts
4. Spray paint "base-pipe-ring" and "tube-socket" parts using just antracite
5. (optional) Spray paint the "button-menu", "button-up-down" parts and at least the bottom part of "base-bottom". But ensure they still fit as those parts must not fit to tight, actually they should be movable easily. I skipped this step, as all those parts are not visible in normal conditions^^
6. Spray paint all the pipes using copper

Note: Base and top cylinders painted (anthrazit base coating, put some silver on top later). Some test parts in the foreground (for paint testing purposes).

Final assembly

1. Insert "base-pipe-bent" and "base-pipe" parts by use of "base-pipe-ring" and maybe some glue (most of them held in place without glue in my case)
2. Glue the fans onto the base part
3. Glue "top-pipe" parts to the top cylinders
4. Glue "tube-socket" parts to the top cylinders and base part. It's a bit tricky to get this right, as you somehow need to ensure, that the tubes are able to slide into later and we reducing the tolerance for that here.
5. Glue the three acrylic glas tubes to the base part (all acrylic glass parts should be ~46mm long/high)
6. Insert the "button-menu" and "button-up-down" into the main base part
7. Insert the "base-bottom" part (featuring the actual nixie clock) into the main base part.
8. Insert the small acrylic sticks into their place and ensure they fit correctly (during next step)
9. Glue the cylinders on top of the acrylic tubes. Tip: Look through the space between the nixie tubes to check, that the acrylic stick in the back is straight, to ensure the top cylinders are oriented nicely.
10. (optional) Add those "DIN 934 M3" nuts into the main base part to be able to fix the bottom part with the "DIN 912 M3x10" screws later. I didn't manage to do so and just kept it without this, as the "base-bottom" part with the nixie clock already fit tightly without... It's actually rather a bit diffcult to get it back out, but works with gently shaking ;-)

Done

Congratulations! You did it!!!

If you didn't go completely insane due to way too much sanding, you can now finally enjoy your very own awesome nixie clock! :-)

Honestly: For me this was one of those "I'm glad I finished it but would probably never do it again"-projects ;-)

But maybe this is just "expectation vs reality", never thought I would have to sand so much xD

Maintenance

If you need to change a tube or just want to access the usb port to flash a new or modified firmware on, you can pull the electronics out the bottom any time.

Just some more pics

KTHXBYE

How I Designed This

The nixie clock was completely designed using TinkerCAD.

The design allows fully removal of the nixie tubes kit (indestructible), e.g. for replacement of a tube or just in case, one want to use it somewhere else.