Nixie tubes have enjoyed renewed popularity over the past fifteen years, and for good reasons. Their warm orange glow gives them a unique character that modern LED and LCD displays simply cannot reproduce. They also offer excellent visibility, a very fast response time and a long service life when operated correctly. I designed the “Grand-Mother board” as a tribute to my late grandmother. It is a versatile control board for creating fully customized five-digit Nixie displays. Three complete display configurations have already been developed : 1. Clock 2. Alarm clock 3. Temperature display. However, the possibilities are unlimited. I can design and program a custom display according to your specific requirements. What can my Nixie display currently do ? ### Main Display Functions > Display the time in 24-hour format (soon 12-hour format) > Show or hide the leading zero before hours below 10 > Display the temperature when fitted with the temperature option > Operate as a stopwatch from **0:00.0 to 9:59.9** > Count rapidly and continuously from **0 to 9,999** > Operate as a manually controlled event counter : * Increment the value * Decrement the value * Reset the counter to zero * Preset the counter to 5,000 > Run a countdown timer adjustable from **1 to 99 minutes** > Run a count-up timer adjustable from **1 to 99 minutes** > Flash when a timer reaches its programmed limit > Switch the Nixie tubes off while keeping their RGB backlighting active ### Random Characters and Animations > Display one rapidly changing random character across the entire display > Display five independently generated random characters > Create a travelling-wave animation across the four numerical Nixie tubes > Start and stop the counters and animations at any time ### Metronome Functions > Operate as a **four-beat metronome** > Operate as a **three-beat metronome** > Adjustable tempo from **40 to 250 BPM** > Visually display each successive beat across the Nixie tubes > Start and stop the metronome instantly ### Electronic Dice Functions > Roll between **one and four six-sided dice** > Roll between **one and two twenty-sided dice** > Roll several dice simultaneously > Roll up to four six-sided dice sequentially, one after another > Roll up to two twenty-sided dice sequentially > Start and stop the animated dice using the front-panel controls ### Independently Controlled RGB Backlighting Each of the five Nixie tubes has its own independently controlled RGB backlight. Available lighting modes include: > Backlight off > Rainbow mode > “Sweet” mode > Random colours changing every five seconds > Red > Green > Blue > Purple > Yellow-green “Mexican” mode > Turquoise > White > Travelling colour-wave animation ### User Controls and Configuration Using the three push-buttons, the user can : > Select the required display function > Set the hours and minutes > Configure timers and metronome speed > Select the RGB colour or animation > Start, stop and reset the active function > Perform a complete hardware reset of: * The main microcontroller * All five Nixie microcontrollers * The 5 V power supplies * The 180 V Nixie power supply All selected settings are retained after a hardware reset.