Building a clock the hard way

[Adam Vaughn]

(04-09-2016 03:24 AM)vk6ti Wrote:  Hi Adam,
Thanks for sharing pics of that nice equipment,
finding old nixie timing pieces and kits is harder than you think,
I have looked for ages but with little success, although I have found a few calculators with nixie displays.
even a heathkit GC1000 would be neat,

Regards
Ray

Yeah, I haven't seen a whole lot of nixie tube gear, besides test equipment. I have a HP 5245L frequency counter, plus an Acton Labs "Digital Phasemeter" (considering turning it into a clock, since I have no idea what I'd do with it). I have another homebrew nixie clock which uses TTL ICs, but it's in very rough shape, as someone harvested the power transformer from it at some point. Hoping to get it running someday, though I have my doubts.


I have numerous other homebrew/kit clocks from the old days, including several Heathkits. Most of them are based around MM531x-series "Clock-on-a-Chip" ICs, though I recently picked up a Radio Shack "Project-Board"-based homebrew which uses a MOSTEK MK50250 IC. I do indeed have a Heathkit GC-1000, as well as a similar unit in the Precision Standard Time 1030 rack-mount WWV-synched clock. You could say I have too much time on my hands...