Lately I got famailiar with the Arduino microcontroller family and it's wonderful properties. I always wanted to have something - a small computer - which I can program to a specific task, without asking a friend to do it please otherwise I cannot finish my project. This is over now. Everybody starts with "hello World" and blinking an LED, but these are not too useful things. So I decided to do something more complex. Also handy, to make good use of my DIY skills. If you are not in trouble you make one for yourself, he? :)

   I am fond of old elektronic stuff, like electron tubes. Therefore I check ebay, if I can find some. Luckily I ran into a halfling which I could use. And this was a Vacuum Fluorescent Tube from the old Russian era, when Soviet goods were ruling the World. This guy has a monumental 100*50mm digit with blueish glowing segments. Also had filaments just like vacuum tubes, and grids/anodes needing not too high voltage. The lifetime is almost endless, especially when you drive it on swithing mode. I wanted to have a steampunk look to the machine, so I designed two acryllic panels with fancy brass nuts as a frame and protection at the same time.

   The software is a kinde of a mule, I used the DS3231 real time clock module and the library as the spine of the code. The rest I made it up by selecting outputs and dedicating them to each segment of the VFD. Since I have only one digit the clock must project the time digit by digit with pauses. Reading the clock takes about 5 seconds to show the correct time. This idea is actually not so dumb: We need to slow down and pay some attention to do it. This is beneficial in this running world!

All the rest was about hundred work hours of searching, sourceing and swearing. Different power supply for the grids, filaments and for the microcontroller. Finding the right driver for the tube, and put everything to a beautiful but very tiny box. Not to mention the wiring, which I changed three time until I was satisfied with the result. But persistence always brings success, so I finished it and it is working now and showing the time on it's own and strange way... :)

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