frantone patreon

If At First You Don't Succeed... Full-On FranLab!!!! Monster VFDs Pt 2

🕑 Added 2021-06-09 23:40:36 +0000 UTC

Comments

Fran Blanche

filament current and anode voltages.

GrayRaceCat

Unfortunately the VFD's have no diagonal segments for the N's. :(

Gary Bleads

I built something similar a few years ago using similar but slightly smaller displays. It used an ESP32 processor, which synchronised itself to an atomic clock over the internet, and HV5812 VFD drivers, each of which can drive two VFD tubes. The filaments were driven off 3.2v DC for simplicity. There is a slight gradient in brightness, but it's hardly noticable in use. The whole thing runs off a 5V 2A USB supply (just!) Photos and video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zt1pQsAgV1D4Dqmv7

Circuitmike

I'm curious why it's advantageous to run all the heaters in series rather than in parallel. My first thought was that series would suck if one filament burned out and the whole clock went dark, but I guess you'd have to fix it either way so it doesn't matter too much. But I assume there's some other factor I'm not thinking of that makes series wiring make sense - anyone know?

Donald J Arndt

Hi Fran: When I saw Part 1 I thought to ask you to check to see if you needed a passive pull down for the off segments. It did not occur to me that you would need a hard active pull-down(away). I envision now an active FRANLAB clock where it switches between time HHMMSSX (X=A for am, P= for PM) and FRANLAB.

Just watched on the YouTubes, very cool. Also just signed on to the patreon thing, which brings me to a question: Are schematics and/or code published for big builds, like the clock noted here? I think I have a perfect spot for a ridiculously huge clock like this.

Chris Crowther

...apply more voltage? Or is that just ElectroBoom?

Great Joe

Heyyyyy, ya did it!

Nice work! That's going to be a beautiful clock. All those discrete transistors have me thinking that there must still be a through-hole driver chip somewhere that would make wiring easier. I found a possible starting point for a more thorough search at https://charlesouweland.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/overview-of-driver-ics-for-vfd-displays/.

David Blake

Great to see you got those beauties working.

Hi Fran ! Is this large transformer needed to power the clock (and why) or was this just one that matches (supersedes) and you had already in your storage ?

Anxious to see the clock!

I knew you wouldn't give up that easily. Nice catch on needing to sink to off segments to ground.

Dave Land

Nothing succeeds as planned. Most people take that to mean "Nothing succeeds," but you've shown us otherwise. Eager to see the clock you build with these VFDs.