I need help to decide what direction to head in for my project. I don’t know If I should use a very small Arduino or a small Pic processor board for what I am doing?
I am making small, AA battery powered, 2 digit - nixie tube number counters. Nixie tubes are old gas tubes with 0-9 digits inside the small neon tube (Just google nixie tube clock). They run on 180v but very low current (2-5 ma).
Currently I am doing everything manually – changing digits inside the nixie tubes with a rotary switch. Cheap and effective but no perks. I managed to find someone that sells the nixie tubes mounted to a board ready to go, and very cheap, but his nixies are I2C devices…. His modules are for clocks, which he controls with a pic processor mounted to a back plane. You just plug in his nixie modules to his back plane and away you go. I inquired to him about if what I wanted could be done with his modules and he said yes.
Nixie Module Datasheet
Schematic
I know almost nothing about Pic processors, writing script for them, ect. My knowledge of writing script for arduino is very limited but I could possibly muddle my way through it. I know arduino can control I2C devices but don’t know if it would work for my application.
Functions:
(1) On/Off toggle switch - for main power
(2) Momentary PB or Momentary rocker switches to change the digits
(1) Momentary pushbutton to light up the nixie tubes for a variable amount of time.
Explained Functions:
On/Off – Doesn’t have to retain numbers on power off. It would be nice to be able to change the starting point on power up in the programming (ie – Start on 20 instead of 00).
2 Momentary PB per nixie tube digit that would cycle through the numbers, (ie – Starts on 0 press the button, 1, press again 2, ect.). It would nice if I could use a momentary rocker so I could cycle the numbers up or down per digit. Will need to light up the nixie tube when changing.
A momentary PB that would light up the nixie tubes for a changeable amount of time. Use a variable resistor to change the reveal time 1- 20 seconds. A pair of nixie tubes can pull 200ma – 1 amp from the batteries. So these will not be running all of the time.
I need these to be small as possible without them getting too expensive. RFduino looks really cool but not sure if there would be enough inputs and outputs and it is a bit expensive. A miniduino looks pretty good and can get them for $8. I found small pic processor boards on ebay search (iboard tiny). They have several different sizes but I have no idea which one I would need all of them under $15 but would take a month to get. I would probably have to pay someone to write the code and I would have to buy a chip writer as well. I would really like to be able to use a small arduino if possible.
I don’t which one would be better for controlling the nixie modules? Can it be done with a an arduino? If so how difficult will the programming be?
Any help would be great
Thanks
Jason