I gave a brief Lightning Talk today at work. It went well and the audience seemed genuinely interested and engaged. I’ve posted a 30 second youtube video of the device running on my desk and showing off a few of the commands over the serial port.

A few people have mentioned they have no idea what I’m talking about or what’s going on in those awful videos I’ve put on youtube. To help clear things up here are a couple of photos.

With the flash it is hard to see the lit digit, but it is a 5 on the right. Arduino up top and Ogi Lumen power supply on the right.

Same as above but without a flash and the five on the left.

More of the same but with 00 on the tubes.

You get the point, it displays digits, for example: 99.

Hopefully the pictures make it clear how simple the configuration is. No extra components are required, the Arduino wires directly to the Nixie Tube Driver and the power supply only has two wires. The code is also pretty simple at about 115 lines and heavily commented. I forgot how fun playing with electronics can be when it isn’t for a grade.