Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: airman00 on January 06, 2009, 09:37:52 PM

Title: Cool Nixie Tube Gmail Mail Count
Post by: airman00 on January 06, 2009, 09:37:52 PM

Have a look at what CuriousInventor did  : http://curiousinventor.com/blog/55

Its a GMail Email Mail Counter using Nixie Tubes
(http://www.curiousinventor.com/images/blog/nixie/nixie_gmail_count.jpg)

btw Nixie Tubes are awesome and steampunkish
This picture should be self-explanatory as to how it works
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZM1210-operating_edit2.jpg)

Title: Re: Cool Nixie Tube Gmail Mail Count
Post by: Admin on January 10, 2009, 10:10:34 PM

Looks easy to do with the $50 Robot . . .

Title: Re: Cool Nixie Tube Gmail Mail Count
Post by: airman00 on January 10, 2009, 11:03:12 PM

Quote from: Admin on January 10, 2009, 10:10:34 PM

Looks easy to do with the $50 Robot . . .

yeah,  easy to do with any microcontroller
I've never seen Nixie Tubes before this project and I think they are fascinating! They're the back-in-the-old-days approach to 7 digit LED Displays.

Title: Re: Cool Nixie Tube Gmail Mail Count
Post by: tristantech on January 11, 2009, 08:57:48 PM

How do you do it???

Do you have a program running on the PC that reads the # of new messages and then sends it over a serial port to the microcontroller?

Title: Re: Cool Nixie Tube Gmail Mail Count
Post by: airman00 on January 11, 2009, 09:01:53 PM

Quote from: tristantech on January 11, 2009, 08:57:48 PM

How do you do it???

Do you have a program running on the PC that reads the # of new messages and then sends it over a serial port to the microcontroller?

http://curiousinventor.com/blog/55