Positron8 - Emulating a Nixie Tube on an SSD1331 OLED Display

[top204]

I have just finished an article on my rosetta-tech site to show how to emulate a Nixie tube on an SSD1331 96x64 OLED display, using a single PIC18F27K40 device, and it displays the Nixie digits rather well, but the phone's camera does not do it justice, and flares the display too much.

See the link below:

Emulating a Nixie Tube on an SSD1331 OLED Display

Regards
Les

[diebobo]

Ooh, beautifull Les ! .. How is the buildup speed ? Is the speed high enough for an eye friendly buildup / screen refresh ? Not sure how to describe it .. Also tried 6 digit version, speed wize ?

[charliecoutas]

Very nice Les. I'm trying to think of possible applications for this at the museum. Have you thought about doing the same thing for the Magic Eye valves, like the EM34?

Charlie

[top204]

Because the code uses the SPI peripheral, operating at its maximum speed, the screen refresh is extremely fast. If more displays were hooked on the single device, each display would need to be refreshed sequentally, and this would slow things down a little, but not by much. If many displays are used, it would be time to move to one of the straightforward 28-pin PIC24 devices. Then quite a few displays could be used.

My thought was to use a single device per Nixie emulator, and by using the BCD demo code mechanism, it will also remove the need for the TTL 7441 BCD to Nixie chip, which are harder to get at sensible prices now.

I sent you a code listing for the Beta version of the EM34 valve emulator using an ST7735 graphic LCD, a few weeks ago Charlie.

I'm busy creating an article for it on my rosetta-tech site.

And, many, many thanks for the EM34 device Charlie. It is very much appreciated, and I am going to get it up and running next week, so I can see it actually move, and maybe put some subtle, random, green colour differences in the emulator, so it gives the valve's green display more reality.

Then I will do articles for the wonderful EM84, and the valve that looks like a fan opening and closing (EM80). Which I have never seen for real moving, but I have seen pictures and movies of one moving.

Regards
Les