Help!

[Tony]

First of all if you're stuck please just email and ask, I'll do what I can to help.

If you're quite sure you are unable to finish your kit, if you have parts in the wrong place, damaged the PCB or just can't find out why it won't work and have given up, I will for a nominal fee plus postage costs repair or exchange your kit for a completed and working PCB.

As it's still probably going to be quite expensive due to the shipping cost only consider this as a last resort. I don't want anyone to be left with a useless kit so if you have no other option, it's there.

[ArchiePreston]

Hi Tony,

First test again, with a better ammeter and no ICs... shows an initial 5mA dropping to 2mA then staying constant. Is this good enough to move on, do you suppose?
We'll keep going until the next test point and see what happens!
Cheers,
Giles and Archie

[Tony]

Hi,
Yes, that sounds exactly what you should have there. Time to fit IC1 and 2.

[ArchiePreston]

That's great, thanks Tony

[bleep]

Hi, is there any current limiting into the backup capacitor?
I want to fit a 4F capacitor in place of the 0.1F, but I'm worried this might cause power up problems if it tries to take too much current on power up, causing the R8 "fuse" to go high resistance and so produce a slow 5V build up causing the pic to have problems?
Thanks Kevin.

[Tony]

That is a good point, I'd recommend fitting a series resistor - 100R should be OK.

[bleep]

Hi Tony,
How do I get the AM/PM indicator to work correctly when I'm in 12 hour mode?
Currently the 12/24hour mode LED (Second from left) seems to mirror the alarm set LED (far left) and the AM/PM LED (third from left) doesn't do anything?
What am I doing wrong?
When I'm setting the time all 4 orange LED's behave as expected, ie the led next to the tube being set flashes, so I don't think I've go a short.
I do get the orange LED's, any or all of them, glowing noticably bright, when their assosiated tube is displaying the digits 1,2,3 or 5, which corespond to pins 10, 11, 13 & 14 on the K155, all of which correspond to input C pin 7. I have tested and checked diodes D9 & D10 and transistor T11.
Any ideas?
Regards, Kevin.

[bleep]

Hi Tony,
I've spent quite a lot of time attempting to work out what's going on.
1) The 12/24hour LED (Second from left) will only be displayed, when the alarm set LED (far left) is also on, if the alarm is off, the 12/24hour LED will never be displayed. (Bug)
2) The AM/PM LED (third from left) does work, but it only changes state at 12:59 to 01:00 transition, I think this should happen at the 11:59 to 12:00 transition, is this some problem with GMT/BST? (Bug/Feature?)
3) When setting the time, particularly the far left digit (tens of hours), the clock stops responding, when the time resumes it has reset to 15:15?
4) I have reduced the gain of transistor T11, such that the LEDs don't glow constantly when digits 1,2,3 & 5 are being displayed, there is still a very faint glow, but I can live with that unless there is an official fix.
Any Comments?
Regards,Kevin.

[Bavaria960]

Hi Toni,

I managed to assemble everything. Current is ~ 240mA.
Blue LED's are on and the red LED are flickering a Little. They have been flashing before.
I do not manage to get the nixies lighting.
Without nixies I got already some beeps and it looked like the clock can be programmed.

Can you send a photo showing the correct assembly of the nixies and where the "white" pin needs to be

Any recommendation?

BR
Dirk

[Tony]

Hi,
White pin (anode) faces bottom right, so V1 anode will be facing the NE1 amber LED. Even in the wrong way though, they would light up so the fault is elsewhere. Could you send me a photo of your PCBs?