EEVblog #999 - Youtube Silver Award Live Subscription Counter

[EEVblog]

Dave transformed his boring Youtube Silver Play Button Award into a cool retro nixie tube live subscription counter!

The final video in a 7 part series on this construction project:
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOlSehNtuHutdg1kZkG7aAYhjoJnk2fc

[The Soulman]

 

What could the 1000th video bring?? 

[Vgkid]

That is pretty cool. Turned out looking good as well.

[sagdahl]

The number 5 ruins the hole impression of the Nixie.
Stupid thing to do 

[Fungus]

What could the 1000th video bring?? 

A look back over the previous 999 videos, obviously!

[Barny]

The first time I saw a pic of the counterwith the 5 on Twitter, I thought Daved had a little ooops. 
But the second thought was that the tube porobably wouldn't light up when put in in the wrong direction and this reversed tube was put in on purpose for a reason I don't knew.

It looks like Dave want to be absolutly sure that the counter will never have an overrun

The counter looks really nice.
What's missing now is an live-cam to show the couter.

Its always nice to see solutions of different people from different professions to solve one task.
I would have gone to the efford to cut out a small, tight fitting holes for every single tube.
(And would have wasted many boards.)
The solution Dave took is faster, easier, cleaner and looks really good.

[GoneTomorrow]

The number 5 ruins the hole impression of the Nixie.
Stupid thing to do 

Sort of agree. You have to try especially hard with the Russian tubes to not get an flipped 2 for a 5. When I built my clock I paid about twice as much for IN-8's as IN-14's, which are almost identical tubes apart from the 5 being proper on the IN-8. I think it was worth it.

[mov]

Could someone help me to figure out the resistance value of the THT resistors he is using? They're going to the decimal points.



From the video I guess it's either:

• red-red-black-red-brown
• 22k @ 1%

or

• brown-red-black-red-red
• 12k @ 2%

But the problem is that I can't be sure which way to read the color bands.

In the schematics video Dave mentioned something like 100k but that was just a shot from the hip, as I understood it. And I don't see these having that value.

I've been inspired by Dave's technique, and have designed a PCB using this approach, which also includes the power supply on the board, but I'm unsure of which resistor value to use there.

Thanks in advance to any help on this 

[sakujo7]

Could someone help me to figure out the resistance value of the THT resistors he is using?

They're probably 22k. I've found this value is more common than 12k, and also I expect Dave deliberately soldered them to read left to right.

You can always drop down to 12k if 22k doesn't work. Usually it's best to try the bigger resistor first anyway.

[mov]

Ahh of course, that's a good idea  Worst that could happen would be the decimal points not lighting up!

Thanks a lot 

[tautech]

Could someone help me to figure out the resistance value of the THT resistors he is using? They're going to the decimal points.



From the video I guess it's either:

• red-red-black-red-brown
• 22k @ 1%

or

• brown-red-black-red-red
• 12k @ 2%

But the problem is that I can't be sure which way to read the color bands.

In the schematics video Dave mentioned something like 100k but that was just a shot from the hip, as I understood it. And I don't see these having that value.

I've been inspired by Dave's technique, and have designed a PCB using this approach, which also includes the power supply on the board, but I'm unsure of which resistor value to use there.

Thanks in advance to any help on this 

It all started here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-948-nixie-tube-display-project-part-1/
There's vids of each of the steps of the build.

[EEVblog]

I would have gone to the efford to cut out a small, tight fitting holes for every single tube.

Not possible with the existing board, it would have left not much more than a 1mm sliver of the (masonite?) board material left.

[chicken]

I would have gone to the efford to cut out a small, tight fitting holes for every single tube.

Not possible with the existing board, it would have left not much more than a 1mm sliver of the (masonite?) board material left.

Still two separate pieces, but maybe something like this instead of the straight cuts.

[Windfall]

What could the 1000th video bring?? 

That occurred to me too.

I was thinking : naked virgins, showing off dumpster finds, while dancing.

[gemby]

What could the 1000th video bring?? 

That occurred to me too.

I was thinking : naked virgins, showing off dumpster finds, while dancing.

Well, i still waiting for 741^st video

[vinicius.jlantunes]

Nice to see the project finished, looks cool too!

[n3vti]

That is awesome, Dave!

I've seen nixies used in frequency counters, clocks, even calculators (the Casio AS-L adding machine I have is proof of that... no picture, yet) but never in a live sub count.

Let's see what EEVblog #1000 will bring...

PS. I'm back...for now!

[German_EE]

I'm wondering if we will see videos number 666, 741 and 1000 all released at once, a good way to spend the weekend.

Oh yeah, and I hate what they did for the number 5 as well.

[Rafael]

Great Project! 

Are these published projects often shared?

A board with 8 IN12 can bring many design options.

Thanks.

[tchicago]

Hi, Dave,
what happened to the counter project? It seems to be turned off on some of the recent videos.

My guess is that the ESP8266 proven to be unreliable platform (both hardware and software), so it probably hung frequently for unknown reasons.

I use ESP8266 in some of my projects, and I do hardware resets on it mercilessly and viciously, by wiring the reset pin to a timer. Of course, with the software and hardware designed to expect this to happen. That seems to be the only way to keep it running reliably for extended periods of time.

I know that the ESP8266 has power consumption spikes that sometimes cause the hang due to a sag on the power bus, so I do have a sizable power reservoir cap next to it. Still, it would eventually hang even with a blinkie application if left running for several days or so.

[ludzinc]

Oh No!

Youtube sub-api change is going to break this

https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/a-farewell-to-youtube-sub-counters-set-to-break-with-api-change/

[tautech]

And here:

[thm_w]

Oh No!
Youtube sub-api change is going to break this

https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/a-farewell-to-youtube-sub-counters-set-to-break-with-api-change/

Its not going to "break" it though right? It will round to the nearest 100.
Of course for some that will make the counter useless, but for Dave its not really going to matter.

[EEVblog]

I have to fix mine because it's hard coded to my old WiFi access point.
Last I tried to fix it the toolchain didn't work 

[thm_w]

You mean the arduino toolchain? odd
For future projects it may be worth using the WifiManager library, so if it is unable to connect to WiFi using saved credentials, it will open up a hotspot and let you enter in new SSID or credentials:

Code: [Select]

#include <WiFiManager.h>          //https://github.com/tzapu/WiFiManager

void setup() {
...
  //Local intialization. Once its business is done, there is no need to keep it around
  WiFiManager wifiManager;

  //Tries to connect to last known settings
  //if it does not connect it starts an access point with the specified name
  //here  "AutoConnectAP" with password "password"
  //and goes into a blocking loop awaiting configuration
  if (!wifiManager.autoConnect("AutoConnectAP", "password")) {
    Serial.println("failed to connect, we should reset as see if it connects");
    delay(3000);
    ESP.reset();
    delay(5000);
  }

  //if you get here you have connected to the WiFi
  Serial.println("connected...yeey :)");

wifimanager: https://github.com/tzapu/WiFiManager
youtube counter link: https://github.com/witnessmenow/arduino-youtube-api