The sweet spot for home turntable enthusiasts on a budget seems to be the $200 mark. This might be the best of the bunch.
One can only imagine the sake-fueled club hopping that led to the development of the Seiko Frequency drum machine watch.
Single Tube Nixie Clock
By James Grahame
Trax designed a rather appealing little Nixie clock around a single IN-8 tube. He writes: "This clock is more an ornament than a useful machine because it consists of just one digit (tube) so it displays current time every minute for three times. It is built inside of an old wooden box and it's powered from a 7V DC wall adapter. Under a nixie tube there is a very bright green LED which makes everything look more beautiful. When time is not displayed, this LED blinks with 1 second period (seconds counter). To power-up a nixie, some 170V DC is required, which means that there is a step-up converter on board with MC34063A IC."
There's even a 3V lithium backup battery inside the case to keep the clock running if it's unplugged from the mains. Source code is available if you'd like to build your own.
