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Duncan Hellmers' Nixie-Tube-Based Blub Clock

By Rain Noe - January 27, 2014

in Materials | Object Culture | Kickstarter

[Editor's Note: This post has been edited to reflect a comment regarding the physical nature of nixie tubes.]

In this age of digital displays, it's hard not to appreciate the old-school aesthetic of a nixie tube. To individually bend ten different digits out of ~~cold cathode neon tubes~~ the cathode, then stuff all of them together in a little glass dome—i.e. the tube itself—is perhaps needlessly labor-intensive but provides a clearly legible readout with an Edison-bulb vibe.

Sydney-based Duncan Hellmers is of the same mind. "[Nixie tubes] fit in well with today's aesthetic trends but still retain that sense of nostalgia and sentimentality," he writes. "I'd seen quite a few tube clock designs online, but couldn't find one whose character matched what I was after, so I decided to design my own."

Industrial designer Hellmers worked up some honest-to-God marker renderings, hired an engineer/physicist to work out the guts, advanced the design into CAD, and succesfully CNC-milled prototypes out of aluminum. Now ready for prime time, the Blub clock, as it's called, is now up for pledging on Kickstarter.

The AUD $369 (US $321) Blub can be set to display the time, date and even the temperature, and has an alarm to boot. With $18,000 in pledges Hellmers is already well past his $5,000 target, but there's still 21 days left if you wants to get you some nixie time.

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Ryan

10 years ago

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Actually, blah, a nixie tube is not at all like an incandescent light bulb. What's glowing is the neon gas around the number which is in fact a cold cathode. So yeah they're not individual tubes but the whole thing is a neon tube.
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blah

10 years ago

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This article is very wrong about nixie tubes. THE NUMBERS ARE NOT MADE OF GLASS OR CONTAIN NEON.

The nixie tube, there is 1 piece of glass, THE TUBE.

THE NUMBERS ARE JUST WIRES IN THE SHAPE OF NUMBERS.

Think of it like a fancy lightbulb. You have your filament. A nixie tube is just an arrangement of specially made filaments in the shape of numbers.

"To individually bend ten different digits out of cold cathode neon tubes, then stuff all of them together in a little glass dome, is perhaps needlessly labor-intensive but provides a clearly legible readout with an Edison-bulb vibe."

This statement couldn't be more wrong.

Once again, THE NUMBERS ARE JUST WIRES, NOT NEON TUBES. THEY GLOW BECAUSE CURRENT IS BEING RUN THROUGH THEM, JUST LIKE A LIGHTBULB.

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