It's nice to see such transparency and product improvements within a company such as this. Looking forward to more videos about your tubes, they're beautiful.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Great! If it was on me, I would share just this type of information as this is my daily work. Just dont want to scare off people with talking too much about problems :-)

@mantheory6432

3 жыл бұрын

@@daliborfarny this shows a level of commitment and love for your craft that gives confidence the the owners, they know they can turn to you if there is ever a problem and they will be heard. I am blessed to have discovered your channel and can't wait to purchase my own.

You are the best Nixie tube manufacturer in the world.

Failure mode analysis is an entire interesting field in and of itself. This was a fascinating video to see exactly what kinds of problems can crop up and how you iterated the design to prevent them in the future. Great attention to detail even after product release, thanks for sharing!

I have been watching these Nixie Clocks as they have been developed by you for the past 2 years. I think it is time i buy one.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you, this is always very nice to hear. I will be happy to assist on email dalibor at farny.cz

@RaymondRChammas

4 жыл бұрын

​@@daliborfarny, the attention to detail is absolutely amazing and, quite frankly, thankless. The amount of knowledge and research and development which goes into designing, producing, selling and putting a damn warranty on something like this is staggering. The amount of troubleshooting skills you have on various electrical, PCB, production, design, etc is quite amazing. I will definitely be buying one. Look for my order in the next couple of weeks. Ray Chammas Columbus, OH USA

@FriendlyWire

4 жыл бұрын

@@RaymondRChammas Well said, I could not agree more!

@ramiroreyesm

3 жыл бұрын

I’m saving up to buy one !

Preserving our technological heritage beautifully. ...Such Joy !!!

*Bravo bravo bravo. Failure analysis itself seems to be a dying art as well, with today's disposable society and products. KUDOS to you for taking such pride in your products, and constantly wanting to refine and make them better. You are keeping humanity alive through your work and art.*

It feels like your production quality increases with every video. lovely

You dedication to your customers, and continual R&D with the aim to benchmark the absolute best product possible, is highly commendable. 👍👍🇦🇺

I bought one of your tubes about 8 months ago & it's been working flawlessly ever since , I may order 5 more around February 2020. Thank you again for creating this artwork !

I really love your attention to detail and improvements. Also very nice job on the video - the editing and the music were very beautiful.

This. This is quality.

@Dalibor Farný this shows a level of commitment and love for your craft that gives confidence the the owners, they know they can turn to you if there is ever a problem and they will be heard. I am blessed to have discovered your channel and can't wait to purchase my own.

"It makes the board a bit mysterious." I absolutely adore that statement. :)

I have made some nixie clocks from kits and custom cases for many years and have been following you since you posted a video on designing/making tubes (what around 7 years now?) I must say you patience, skill and attention to detail is beyond excellent. Failures are to be expected but the few you do have and the way you address them reflects on your passion, please don't stop, thanks for sharing. I'm hoping some time soon, maybe next year, to have the spare money to purchase one of your clocks (I'm sure mine will find a new room to live in :) )

These Nixie Tubes are so fascinating and impressive. I really enjoy your work and hope that you're able to spread your awesome products all around the world again👍

Excellent quality control and work

Great to see success from failure.. Nice that you openly share this rather than swept under to carpet. Many thanks

That is excellent that you show the problems you have encountered. Most other electronics companies would never do that. Well done solving the problems.

One big benefit of having the HV tracks on an inner layer is better insulation. For FR4 some standards suggest 200 V should have 0.4 mm clearance on outer layers and 0.2 mm on inner layers. This is a bit conservative, but it's good to have margin.

Love your attention to clean design and detail.

These are beautiful. I first heard about you in a tech video about a year or two ago. Too expensive for me to afford, but it's easy to understand why they cost so much. The hard work and careful attention to detail shows in your product. I hope your company expands and grows.

Awesome channel and videos. Nice to see that you're keeping Nixie tubes alive and popular 👍👍👍👍

Very nice job on the video! And very interesting subject. Thanks a lot for sharing and all the time you're spending doing videos. Each time it is like a little present I'm delighted to open.

Another great video, and beautiful videography!

I admire your dedication. What you do is a great synthesis of art and precise science. I wish more (electronic) products would receive this amount of care at every stage of their life cycle.

In 2015 I was curious about nixie clocks, they looked cool but back then as an engineering student buying all things was quite expensive... But I got IN14 Tubes and a board, build everything, work on the lathe and man... That was the best money I ever spend. I really mean it, ever! I was and I am always fascinated about tech in all kinds of styles but after achieving it most of it got boring oder time. But not Nixie tube (clocks). I really hope you'll do this for way more years so I can buy your puri nixie clock... I really like your way of speaking open about not beeing perfect. Nobody and nothing is, improvement is so important.

...loving how board is exposed at the bottom with all the maker info. Nice detail...:)

Very inspiring how you bring a personal approach to customer support.

Bravo Dalibor. World class on your products. You show the way for quality and inspiration. Good luck in the future.

I wish I could afford one of these clocks. They are so beautiful. Unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot afford even a single tube.

Another awesome video Dalibor! Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪

Awesome job and video!

I learned about via reliability - cool! This is a great video - documenting improvements and why you made them.

These tubes look even better in the flesh. I am proud to own two of these works of art. Well done Dalibor.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Hi John, thank you for nice comment. You are right, the photo/video cant catch beauty of the nixie tube ;-)

this is not a hobby its not a job this is pure dedication and love you are awsome,maybe someday i can buy one

Fascinating video, thank you.

you are so smart in so many ways!

Videos like these are what make me love you and your work so much. Puri clock #7 is looking back at me on my desk as I type this comment - it is my prized possession. After seeing the "Making of" video, I was hooked. I love what you do, and will be a customer for life.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Hi Zachary, your kind comment was the first message I read in the morning, it made my day better - thank you for it! Thank you for being our customer!

Love your videos and I'm just as obsessed with the tubes looks and design as you. I'm very fascinated by your videos! Please keep them coming along. I do have some questions though. As I own 3 types of Nixie watches. These watches have the Z5900m tubes installed. How rare are these tubes? Will you possibly move into making tubes at these sizes in the future?

Nadherna praca, krasne hodiny, stranka, luxus 👌😉 drzim palce nech sa Vam dari. Raz si Vase nadherne hodiny kupim 😉

Dalibor, when I used to repair multilayer boards in the military. My go to method for troubleshooting “VIA” issues was freeze spray and a heat gun. It was fast and very reliable. There are various methods for repairing this permanently, but none of them are pretty enough for your circuit boards. Which are for all practical purposes, works of art. Like putting scotch tape on a rip in a Rembrandt. Nice catch with the stuck digit. From the video it was obvious that the customer accidentally misaligned the tube while installing it. Sure you can always make the spacing larger. Then there will just be another customer who pushes harder and longer whilst misaligning the Nixie, than the last. I am really digging the all white shop. At first I thought it was too much, but all of the equipment and furniture help balance it out quite well.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

heat cycle - very interesting method, thank you for sharing it! the white shop was quite good idea, more coming soon..

Making the vias larger drill diameter will help to mitigate the problem only partially - it does not remove the root cause, only makes it less likely. The main fault is using the PCB as structural member of the mechanical assembly - using larger laminate core thickness is step in right direction, hovewer you have to correctly place mounting points to the case still - the PCB is nowhere rigid enough. Having screw holes only on the perimeter of the board is not optimal/enough. Once you do that, using regular stock 1,6mm thicknes will work out just fine (and overall design cheaper to produce, even when the needed changes to mechanical assembly applied). Same stresses can and will cause cracks to MLCCs present on board, with problems likehood increasing with package physical size and capacity. Board flexing during insertion of the nixie tube is inacceptable. If your CAD package allows conditional design rules, you should apply larger clearance on high voltage signals on outer layers - you have higher likehood of problems there due to creepage distances due to possibility of external contamination of the board. Soldermask defined pad is recommended as well for those (with big enough margin to make up for the litho aligmnent error). On HV DC signals, you can also cause problems with electromigration of surface contaminants (meaning initially only partially conductive strays can worsen over time). If you use lead-free solder (which you de-jure must, if that is a good idea is whole other question), you might have further problems with tin whiskering (depending on exact alloy). Three layer stack-up is nonstandard, the board is getting produced as 4L anyways (implied by the technology process) - take that to your advantage and do ground and split power plane, they should be placed on L2/L3 with similar amount of copper fill rate to prevent warping during reflow. Tighter coupling inbetween the power planes helps to further mitigate EMI. EMI problems with two groundplanes was most likely due to insufficient via stitching of both and likely having excessive voiding / islands created by tracks - in absolute most cases, having low impedance connected several groundplanes makes things much better, not worse. Don't forget to viastitch also on the whole perimeter of the board - otherwise edge-radiating antenna is unintentionally created. PS: Pokud máte zájem o hlubší analýzu na základě kompletních dat návrhu, dejte vědět :)

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for this comment, lots of valuable information! Just few quick explanations - we didnt have problems with EMI, this was fine with the previous designs. It is only better with new design.. We use increased clearance (2mm) on HV lines - exactly for the reasons you mentioned. Thanks for the tips regarding the layers and EMI - we will sit on it and discuss what we can do better for next revision. Keep in touch :-) PS: Je na Vás nějaký kontakt? :-)

@Konecny_M

4 жыл бұрын

@@daliborfarny V youtube profilu mám doplněn pracovní mail.

@Salamekleikum

4 жыл бұрын

Personally i would like to separate DPS for electronic and nixie tube mounting and connect them together by ribbon cable( or direct connector)... this would solve "all eggs in one basket" problem and mechanical issues too since DPS for nixie tubes can be single side with nice thick tracks mounted from inside by 4 screws per nixie tube...

Gracias por tu generosidad en tiempo y conocimiento.

Молодец! Шедевры делаешь. В каждом движении видно, как ты любишь свое дело.

Love your work, thank you

I have a small question: why not leave the vias unmasked and solder into them to reinforce it?

Reminds me of doing FA on nuclear instruments at my old job. Had to take everything apart and methodically inspect and document everything, lest you miss something the first time. Quite a lot of work, but that's where you learn a lot of details you don't normally encounter during normal design and test.

Beautiful video. Keep up the good work. Ongoing improvement.

Loving your videos! Nixie tubes are amazing. Honestly wishing I could work in your company.

Very interesting! Your English speech was perfect! Have no fear of narrating future videos!

Congratulations. I am fascinated by nixies and your Zen clock is awesome but too expensive for me unfortunately. I hope to be able to grab a few 11 tubes later this year and build my own.

I have a set of tubes from 2015. they are still working great.

I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for putting it out there, it's very cool to see what you have to go through to make the system reliable, and supportable.

You all are awesome!

Loved the video and found it very interesting to watch but for me, the cost of purchase is prohibitive but must say they do look very good thanks for the video Bob in the UK

It looks nice.

Nice vid man. Thumbs up!

Good PCB board is basic rule...I still work with audio tubes around 15years. Your hand made Nixies tubes are beautiful. I just hope one day I can use and buy Czech audio tubes like a Emission Labs but not throught Germany....Good luck Dalibor

Very informative video -thank you. Is there a schematic anywhere for the 4 in 14 clock? Customer just dropped off his 6 month old clock , one tube is non-illuminating.

I want to move to the Czech Republic and go work for Dalibor.

@stevesoldwedel

4 жыл бұрын

Same.

This really wants me to go into Nixie tube making just to help you in your goal of “bringing the Nixie tube back to life”... but the amount of tech and skill you have... never will I ever reach that...

beautiful design

Chtěl jsem pořídit jedny hodiny svému tatkovi k vánocům protože je šílený audiofil a má zesilovače s elektronkama, tak jako doplněk by to bylo super. Musím ale asi ještě víc vydělávat :D. Možná časem koupím samotou digitronku co prodáváte a zkusím si udělat vlastní obvod. Ale to bude projekt na dlouho. Každopádně úžasná práce! Jen tak dál.

Great work. I think the tube metal holder could have a notch to prevent this issue shown in 6:48. That notch will align with clock base perfectly.

I’m afraid to ask how much are these I do absolutely love them

Great Customer Service.

Zen and the Art of Nixie Tube Maintenance.

Wow, your boards look beautiful, what manufacture do you use?

It's funny how such a little change like the size of the via adds up

I am not keen on more than 2 layers personally, too difficult to repair if something goes wrong with connections or tracks on the inner layer. I like the way you address failures though and learn from them, altering the design as necessary. That sort of attention to detail is essential for decent quality control.

Zdravím Dalibore, každé Vaše video mě fascinuje a zároveň utvrzuje o Vaší nezkonalé potřebě být dokonalý a oddaný zákazníkovi. O5 super a těším se na další. P.S. někdy si říkám, neradíte moc konkurenci jak se vyhnout problémům? r.h.

This is art.

Those are beautiful. How many hours of "on time" can one of your tubes be expected to last?

Do you have a clock design showing seconds? It would be great to see the seconds counting.

Also be careful with PCB manufacturers... Especially here in Czech Republic there"s a bit of that rezistance to tell the costumers that their PCB's fail a lot. For example certain Prague based PCB fab, won't be throwing names, has quite long history of low quiality vias. Literally you get package of 250 boards and 150 of them are deffective with no copper at all in the barrel of the via, while you also get the certificate about passing full electrical tests. It's quite frustrating.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Hi, thanks for the information! We now use mainly Gatema.cz and Printed.cz, both very reliable. We increased via drilling and traces spacing and since then we havent had a single issue with any of the boards.

Where ever there is space i use 2 vias instead of one via, the extra via acts as a redundant connection, also add teardrops where ever possible. most of the Via failures are due to the Z axis expansion of the Laminate, so using a laminate with lower Z axis expansion reduces this problem. 185HR from Isola is a good material with lower Z axis expansion.

Would a nixie tube still be able to function with another noble gas like krypton or xenon inside instead of neon?

What sockets do you use for the bulb to the clock’s PCB connection?

Can colon tubes be purchased for previous owners of the ZEN nixie clocks?

What are these pins called "sockets" for lamp leads? I can't find anything like that anywhere in the stores.

Do you paint the back plate, so it looks like dark black ot it is playing of neon gas?

I just saw your custom Keysight logo tube and am fascinated by it. The attention to quality and detail is truly remarkable! I have some query though: Do all nixie tubes you make have custom board footprints? It's all right for custom tubes like these, but for clocks and general displays, could I use one of your tubes as replacement parts, or for your clocks, could I use one of the general tubes? Not that I want to, but I would still like to have something like that at my disposal.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Hey, we dont make custom tubes - this was first one made to order. All our tubes are exhangable - from the pinout to the size/shape.

I have a faulty 1971 vintage IN-16 that developed a short from anode 6 to cathode burning out the darlington driver chip in my homemade clock, I switched it with anothe one in place where digit 6 is not used and left disconnected the faulty anode. The light of these soviet tubes is paler orange than usual neon indicator bulb as it contains mercury to prolong the lifetime. Nice work, looks well made. _

have you tryed diffrent gases for other colors

One question - why you dont do the same connection for the tubes that have tube amplifiers? They are not connected directly to PCB but with tube socket.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

Integrating sockets into pcb is easier, there are no sockets for our tubes available - we would have to develop them. Such solution would be also bulk, not fitting into thin clock..

I know this is an old video but just throwing it out there would you be available to assess what’s wrong with my Nixie tubes clock? One tube stopped working 😢

My glass lathe was hard to get and I live in the USA, I can't imagine the difficulty this guy had getting tools and equipment.

I had a clock go bad that was a gift for my dad, I wish I knew how to fix it

What is the website to buy them. Pls!

Why are those traces so thin? Thicker traces would help with a more reliable process with less wastage from failed etching due to such fine features. Just because your board house CAN do such thin traces, doesn't mean you should use them

You guys in chech are using russian screws? Counterclock clockwise screws?

I want some nexietubes but I will have to wait like 7 years because I am a student and they are just beutiful but not neccesary. I hope you are still around producing them in 7 years hopefully with a bigger company.

Perhaps a "key" on the tubes would help ensure they're inserted directly and don't misalign the pins. A guide of sorts, perhaps one that sits below the visible bottom of the tube

Tube is have granule box. It melt the oatmeal runder to charcoal to make the long part. It call it that granule box.

Some tips. - Use a 4 layer pcb (standard, will help you switch factories easier), 2nd layer ground, 3rd layer power (3V3), 4th layer high voltage, and most signals put them on the top. Dont break layers 2 and 3 for anything at all. - Make your traces thicker too (12-40mil for simple traces if u have space) - Some factories offer via filling (but not that necessary in this case) - Use multiple vias + polygons for anything that consumes more than ~20mA - Add more caps around, i dont see that many ;) - If high voltage signals are going near normal pins, put a ground trace in between then to avoid coupling and also put them as far as possible, or from layer 1 to layer 4. Same with high speed signals. - Im skeptical about your factory (via issues are quite uncommon, and the soldermask seems to be meh quality if its so easy to get scratched). Hope this helps, nice filming man!

@Konecny_M

4 жыл бұрын

Traces thickness recommendation has zero merit past current handling capacity and impedance control - absolutely any fab can nowdays handle 6/6mil rules for 35um finished plating. The norm is optical inspection of all layers before lamination and 100% coverage e-test of finished panels. Via filling is intended for absolutely different purposes and does not help with the problem presented in video at all (actually can even worsen it, especially if overplated). From solely the PCB reliability standpoind of view, its not even optimal to do soldermask tenting of the vias. Current handling capacity of even smallest technology permissible via in comodity technology is way way higher than the order of magnitude of 10mA - the stitching becomes important one or two magnitudes above that - depending on via drill diameter, which can drastically infulence its current handling capacity. Heatsinking by surrounding copper (be it power trace or better yet polygon) plays important role as well. Impedance of the via usually matters way more in most cases, and in some less common the ohmic loss (Vcore rail for MPU or FPGA) - but that is outside of the scope of the design presented here. Recommendation of putting the HV lines on outer layers as optimal is wrong. Whenever possible, they should be routed on interal layers as the surrounding laminate has much better insultation properties than what is possible to obtain on outer layer. Soldermask is just that - it is NOT an functional insulation layer and minor voiding defects are allowed and normal. Surface resistivity of any insulation material will be always worse than in its bulk, even in pristine conditions (which won't be maintained over time). Post-manufacturing cleaning is hard (and there is no such thing as no-clean flux!) Also depending on the edge rate (if some of the singals are switched or AC), EMI will get much worse. The recommendation does not hold true for high edge rate signals at all either - there you actually care most about low impedance return path beneath provided without any voiding, and layer placement/stackup is more governed by impedance control of those signals and mutual crosstalk, not crosstalk as agressor to other slow nets around. Suggestion of keeping both groundplane and power plane (single rail) totally void-free is bit off as well - it is absolutely normal to have mixed signal polygons and even some routing on power planes, the ground is what usually is the important reference plane that is good to aim to keep void free - even there, exceptions do apply. Note that by that I am not implying that the power rail does not serve absolutely same purposes from RF perspective (reference), carefull planning of the adjecent layer routing has to be done, should you decide to do mixed net pour there. BTW: the PCB mfg is local, reputable and with good quality control. They have had almost flawless track record with all the companies I worked with and for past some minor cosmetic defects in single case which got promptly admitted and respinned at zero cost. It is very good idea to have a good long ponder about the causes before trying to play shift the blame games.

@marios2liquid

4 жыл бұрын

​@@Konecny_M Trace thickness does affect things. If you can add thicker traces, you absolutely should (for slow signals at least). For example when you do panelization you have uneven etching and in some cases the PCB factory will remove these PCBs or mark them for you. It is one of the reasons many PCB factories make more PCBs than you order. PCBs fail in different stages at the PCB fab and one reason is over-etching/under-etching. (I've seen 10mil traces being reduced to nothing on the edges of panels, accidentally scratched, etc). Just my opinion, use your own judgement. But with a PCB this big it wont hurt making them thicker. Via filling, I meant with solder sorry. Obviously any other filling wouldn't work (I would still go with larger Via holes and tenting). Vias yes can handle alot of current (which unfortunately varies with factories, and day of year), but I tend to over spec my designs when I can. Its easier to say, enlarge vias or add more, than sitting down and explaining that even though your WiFi module consumes 200mA average, you should spec everything to 2 Amps to account for spikes, in-rush current, voltage drops, etc. Its a KZread comment after all. I agree that HV lines can be positioned more optimally, my original comment was meant to be short. Not dumping a giant textbook response, as its hard to explain some of the reasoning. For example, HV traces ideally shouldn't be on the top where the majority of the other signals are. But also the bottom side is exposed to the customer & will radiate outwards. But if you need to put them in the middle layers you need to have a lot of experience with ground loops, not cutting the internal planes, etc. unless you know what you are doing. Regarding HV switching lines (or high current) being near other signal traces, things will couple one way or another so if you can put a ground line between them, distance them or put them away on a different level then better.. The power plane can be segmented yes, with ground more care needs to be taken. Soldermask seemed a little weak on my opinion, maybe not as scratch resistant as others. Especially matte black which is usually the weakest of all. Also the via thing, well its still a via failure so I don't understand why I am not allowed to comment that I am skeptical about it?

@Konecny_M

4 жыл бұрын

@@marios2liquid I still disagree with the tace widths. You are at freedom to fully utilize the design rules class you used for the design and paid for - unless you step down the whole design technology class, you won't get benefited in any way by the manufacturer price-wise. Rejects are totally expected (and you already paid for them amortized in the cost per given design rules class). They really should not happen due to under-etch trough, that is a very bad sign about lack of process quality control of given fab.

Before 0.3 and after 0.6? Reversed?

A 3 layer PCB? That's highly non-standard. Can you elaborate on why you chose this over 4 layers? A 3 layer PCB presents a multitude of problems that 4 layers do not have.

@daliborfarny

4 жыл бұрын

True, it is actually made as 4 layer, with one of the inside layer omitted.

@stabilini

4 жыл бұрын

Wait I’ve seen this comment before! Freaking dejavu

There are many things to improve, first, absolute must is to use teardrops on every pad and via if possible. Next, top layer is good to be plated with copper aswell and use it as an EMC shield, then add many stitching vias to seal the inner layers in between. Top and bottom copper also makes the pcb more rigid. Then, use larger separation between the pad and gnd-copper so it is impossible to short if tube is misassembled. Then place the components to one side only so it goes throught the reflow oven only once and stresses the vias and components less. Use double vias, or epoxy-plug them. Then concider higher tq material if board gets hot. I have't had via issues even on thicker 3mm boards. It has to do with the pcb company and their quality to assure the boards will last. We always used the best companies and good materials. Don't be cheap, buy the best boards you can. Losing your reputation because of quality issues is really silly.

the via featured in this video looks like it could have been easily avoided. The best way to avoid failures is to minimize complexity. Maybe see if rerouting some of the channels is possible to make your great product even greater!

Hououin Kyoma! Mad Scientist!