This is a digital clock made with NE2 neon bulbs (the sort you find in mains plugs, extention cables etc). Why? Just because a LED clock seemed boring and I wanted a challenge. The software and clock is driven by a pi zero with wifi. Neon bulbs driven by 12v power transformer in reverse from 5v supply (same as pi zero power) using simple 555 driver. The bulbs run at hv and the pi lv so the two are isolated from each other by two banks of solid state relays (6 to multiplex the common cathode and 7 for the digit). Code for clock and multiplexing is written in c. Still WIP as not entirely happy with brightness when multiplexing, running tests which displays 1 digit in isolation is fine but when switching 6 digits it is less impressive. Would also be better with 3 ne2 bulbs per segment but hey I never had enough.

Messy wiring everywhere!! Its gonna short for sure when I move it about but hey its a prototype, also decided to wrap it in nice minecraft paper..