Hey everyone, so I kind of feel like I just walked into a big room full of people busy discussing smart people things and I'm not even sure where I am, so sorry if this isn't quite the right place to post. Anyways, late last year I started getting really interested in electronics and other related sciences. For whatever reason, I really love nixie tubes, but I can't figure out what exactly it is that activates switching to the next display thing. Is it a higher voltage that causes it to display a new number/symbol? Different frequency? And just a little side question... how much time does it take to learn how to use arduino stuff? I don't know any programming right now, but I'm really into engineering of mostly any sort, and I've been trying to learn some circuitry but I can't find much that gives you a start. So, yeah, it seems like it would be a good thing for me to know... but is it worth the time?
"how much time does it take to learn how to use arduino stuff? "
Depends how much time you put into it.
A minimal 16 MHz circuit only needs a 4.5-5V source, a crystal or resonator, a couple of caps and a 10K resistor. And whatever you decide to use for a socket, or connectors.
Then its just programming to make it do things.
Here's a simple program to make an LED blink. Everything is an expansion on something like this.
// declare variable names, or assign names to pins to be used
byte outputPin = 4;
// define stuff that will happen once in setup()
void setup() {
// setup the pin to be an output pin (vs input)
pinMode (outputPin, OUTPUT);
}
// now write the stuff that will occur over & over
void loop() {
// set the pin High - in this case the pin is connected to the anode of an LED, cathode to a resistor, to Ground - so High is on
digitalWrite (outputPin, HIGH);
// wait 100mS
delay (100);
// set the pin Low - turns the LED off
digitalWrite (outputPin, LOW);
// wait 900mS - so overall the LED appears to flash once a second
delay (900);
} // end of loop() - go back & run the loop() code again.
Nixie tubes have multiple elements, one for each digit. To change the digit that is on, a different element is driven. Pretty straightforward.
The tricky thing is the voltage - they run at very low current, but at a high voltage - like 170-200V.
A special chip that can switch the high voltage on/off is used. Or a bunch of discrete transistors can be used instead.
