And you get a clock at the end of it! [hamblin.joe] wanted to do a simple project for kids along these lines, so whipped up a neat design using analog meters to display the time.

The clock is powered by an Arduino Mega and it uses a DS3231 RTC to keep the time. Each digit has two sliding grids which are affected by small stepper motors.

The Arduino code reads the clock and produces the output to the tubes fast enough that your eye perceives each digit as being always on, even though it isn’t.

Building your very own Nixie tube clock is becoming easier and easier thanks to sites such as Nixie Tester and custom-made new boards. Such as the Arduino Nixie tube clock shield that is ...