Nixie Watch 2.0

Sat, Jul 25, 2020

After finishing the first version of my nixie watch I wasn’t happy with the few design flaws it has (see the list at the end of the old post) and wanted to improve things. The main goal was to make it smaller. The height stayed the same but I managed to decrease its width by 6 mm.

Here’s a list of improvements:

• It’s now partially assembled by JLCPCB’s SMT assembly service.
• There are footprints for the miniature transformer, which is still a modified inductor, and for the mercury switch.
• It includes a USB-C port (TYPE-C-31-M-17) for charging the battery.
• I printed the case with my new Elegoo Mars Pro. It delivers high precision parts but the standard resin is quite brittle. In the future I will try ABS-like resins, which should result in much stronger parts.
• Fix all the bugs of the list at the end of the first version post.

Have a look at the following pictures. This particular watch is a birthday present for my father and I managed to polish the surface quite smoothly.