There’s little denying that Nixie tubes are cool. Well, maybe not cool — perhaps it’s their warm and glowing characteristics that have drawn generations of hardware tinkerers to them like moths to a Nixie flame. They aren’t always particularly straightforward to work with though and the EasyNixie has been designed to lower the technical barriers to this cool retro tech.
The EasyNixie is an Arduino-compatible module that allows Nixie tube control with 3 or 4 IO pins and system power. Nixie tubes require high voltages to run and the EasyNixie cleverly uses a 2-stage voltage boosting system to boost the 3.3 or 5V to 12V and then boost the 12V up to 180V. With 3 pins you can control the Nixie tube display but the additional 4th pin allows you to add dimming capabilities.
The boards, supplied fully assembled, are stackable so it’s easier to make a neat control system for a multiple Nixie tube project. Speaking of projects, the EasyNixie has an Arduino Library. Over on the repository, there are numerous examples ranging from a Nixie display Geiger counter to a Nixie multimeter and more.
There’s a video and more information over on the product page and it’s worth checking out the EasyNixie Hackaday.io project page for more examples, images and some of the back story of the development of this fantastic board!
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