@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER A furby coo coo clock would make a great video, another thing I thought would be neat, though a bit out of your comfort zone, would be a bit of British history. Allen Touring invented the Touring machine, could you build a touring machine with uniselectors?
Conceives this whole weird thing and builds it all flawlessly, making a video the whole time. Can't remember how many days are in February. The man has to be a genius.
I would love to see your museum! I learned about "stepper switches", relays, and all sorts of electro/mechanical stuff by taking apart surplus equipment as a teen in the 60s. I eventually went to electronics school and learned about discreet logic gates before there were integrated circuits. Now we have microprocessors on a tiny chip. I've seen quite a technological revolution in my 73 years of being a "geek". The old-school stuff is much more interesting to see in operation. I'm really blown away by watching old mechanical telephone pulse-dial line routing equipment running. Old pre-digital pinball machines and juke box mechanisms are amazing, too. I keep my ancient brain alive by playing with Arduino now. I love that you're using high-tech CAD software to design the mountings for your 75 year old devices.
Hey Sam. Just wanted to let you know that February in a leap year has 29 days. Normally February has 28 days, not 27. Really enjoyed the video. Superb work as always.
Sam's outfits never fail to be amazing, sometimes whacky, sometimes sexy, sometimes something else all together but I love them all! I need that jacket tho 😅 such a brill video as always
Ive genuinely watched sam say "100, then count like that till a million, a gazillion, a trillion etc... boodly boodly boodly boo" about the same amount of times as a boodly boobly boodly boo!! Humour and electronics, what more could anyone want 😂
Well, when inventions like transistors or microchips were initially made they often replaced some old clunky piece of hardware instead of completely re-inventing the whole circuit. So that's why there's so many legacy and pretty much useless aspects in tech products that make no sense to a young brilliant mind who encounters those mysteries the first time. And that makes it extra fun.
I once made a clock with CD4017 ICs. They're solid state decatrons and thus related to these uniselectors here, but most of the time they're used for light show animations. It even has an alarm that strikes a bicycle bell with a hard drive read head arm.
As someone who's spent most of last year (i.e. 2023) working on a clock electronics project, I can definitely appreciate this project. Mine has the added complexity of the seconds digits, and also not having a 1pps (1 pulse per-second) signal. It's not hugely complex, but I limited the project to 1970s era 4000 series logic to keep things interesting. I honestly don't expect to have my project "finished" in 2024. At the very least I do think I can get the time counting on some vacuum tubes. But if I can manage to get more than two days off this year, perhaps I'll surprise myself and also make it look like a clock. Anyway, I really enjoyed your videos in 2023, so I really hope you have an equally excellent if not better 2024!
After watching this channel for a few years, I'm really starting to think, as much as I enjoy your music, that 'musician' is just your 'side-hustle', because, well, all these fascinating, and pretty complex (to a noob) projects... today's video looks like something I'd expect when watching the Curios Marc channel..
Thanks for all the videos and projects. My New Year's Resolution is to come and visit the Museum which is 150 miles away so need to plan a whole trip. Happy New year to you Sam
Very nice. If I may make a suggestion I'd have inverted the signifier so that it turns off briefly every two seconds instead of on. I don't think burn in is a huge issue. I've had my nixie clock running more or less continuously since 2007.
Burn-in no, but sputter, where metal vaporizes and coats the glass increases the more current you run through the lamp. Under-power it by using a higher rated resister will greatly decrease sputter while only slightly reducing light output. Neon glow lamps and nixie lamps work by smacking electrons into neon gas surrounding the cathode causing photons to fly off. That process can go on forever.
February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and has 28 days (29 in leap years) and is thus the shortest month of the year, when all other months have 30 or 31 days. It contains the 32nd to 59th day of the year (32nd to 60th in leap years).
I just Ebay searched for one. Thought it would be a fun thing to play with, then ebay it on when bored. Holy molases! I think Sam may have all of them!
What a magnificent timepiece! Another awesome video. Would you consider adding an additional digit for hexaseconds? Happy New Year - looking forward to more brilliant videos.
I wish that I could have a full time job working for you!!! Great build mate. An idea for the racks, talk with a welder in the area and see if they can whip you up some out of some scrap??? Doesn't seem that hard to make.
Hah! Excellent. I really should finish the one I started to build 10 years ago! Mine was going to use laminar displays rather than nixies. All the fun bit is complete, I just never got around to doing the woodwork to build a case for it!
aaah yes laminar displays! hard to find in any bulk right? i only have 2 and they are bloomin different haha, yes i remember the clock you made!!! looking forward to seeing it on its way!!!! glad its still about though!
I’ve got 4 the same that are already mounted in a panel, that were part of a clock system from some industrial site… so they’re destined for it really. I’ve spent this afternoon trying to work out how to get a pair from my master clock in the house down to the shed where the clock will end up. I’ve been told it’s noisy to have uniselectors clunking away in the house!
haha its music to peoples ears!!! its funny though i love the sound of clonking in the bacground, but some people who have sat and worked over in the museums says its maddening haha@@lpbkdotnet
Great video. if you're going to add leap years, remember there's a 400 year rule to them. Such that 2000 WAS and 2400 will be a leap year, but 2100, 2200 and 2300 will NOT be a leap year.
How do you fit so much brain into one head 😊lol Happy New Year I hope 2024 brings you everything you wish from the smallest transistor or bits for your huge organ, I do have a few antique phones that will come to your museum one day but I’m not ready to let them go yet lol 😂❤
Happy new beer dude. With triggers I was just randomly thinking about the Traintackr led pcb displays with leds lighting up every time a train comes into a tube or subway station, I was thinking that data feed could be a random note generator somehow. Possibly completely useless and I am operating on 10 minutes sleep but those things are cool, not as cool as nixie tubes, but nonetheless.
Interesting setup. Thought it'd be the 50Hz from mains as the base clock cycle, but not the case here. Although it makes sense given what's available at the old electro-tech museum. You've got more interesting options than what would be there for some desk clock. Also it'd be a laugh if those switches would fit on Euro-rack rails. (I think it would have already been tried and ruled out though.)
Lovely project! Four electromechanical 4017s, haha. I like your cable lacing - it doesn't have to be perfect. Just stay determined and Keri on. I'd love to get a uniselector and show it on my channel someday... unfortunately they're not around in my country, and buying internationally is out of the question. Way too expensive.
Most people go see things like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. But when I get a passport and head over the pond, I'm going straight to visit This Museum... and RMC The Cave and their retro arcade. They're about a 3.5 hour drive away from each other but I don't care. I'll find a way to get there. Next summer, I think. If my passport comes in time, that is.
Arrr memories. I do miss the step-by-step exchange. Well, wiper cleaning was not the best memory. The sound of uni-selectors rotating, bi-motional switches stepping up and in. Better than Cross-bar.
You probably don't need a screensaver per se but keep in mind some digits will wear more than others. I would suggest rotating the tube positions so the wear evens out.
You should implement a leading zero blanking arrangement on the 'tens of hours' Nixie. Nice job all the same, especially with not a single silicon device used.
I vote vor a mechanically driven cam thingy that plays the full four westminster chimes on microswitches which then actuate the things that make the tones happen. Perhaps thats something to put a washing machine cam drive, an industrial timer cam mech or just something from the 3D printer in?
I have some old school clocks that sync through the mains. They were binning them, I saved what I could. My nixie tube voltmeter, well, had to buy that. only 3 digits but there's space in there for 4..
Of course you have a working time signal clock why am I not surprised! I've just had a thought, I wonder if you could somehow build a machine to generate pips like BBC radio has? That'll be a cool thing to link with that clock.
If you could get half second pulses you could make a big ben sequence with a uniselector to tick through the sequence and one to kick of the (quarter hour i think, idk, im not british) sequences every increment. Every note should be half a second long with half a second break after the forth one. Might even be possible to combine it with a ding for each full hour done.
@Sam - I'm looking for one of those pendulum clock mechanisms here in the USA, however, they are hard to find here. Would they go under another name? Would you know of a reasonably priced source? Found nothing on Ebay.
this is so cool dude also I might have a great clock idea that needs your help A digital clock build with analog parts that uses a crt as a display I have worked out most of the things (I can draw the numbers with resistors/capasitors) but I have some problems with driving a scope crt
Do you have a reliable source for those “Christmas Tree” terminal blocks? We use them for audio wiring in our theater, and ADC stopped making new ones. We only need three rows of terminals, but they are modular enough that larger ones ( like the one in the video) could be modified for fewer rows.
Could one phobe the exchange and here the current Jingle, then if they were a visitor and remember their number, type that in and hear their unique jungle??
Nice video! I like your work and hope I could visit anytime your museum, but it would be a far travel :) One comment to the video since I see no one mentioned it: Could it be that February actually has 28 Days and every four years 29 days?! 😅 (time index 14:21)
Uniselector hijacked to make a furby cuckoo mechanism you say?
"Uh-oh! Ay-ay leekoo!"
How about replicating the Big Ben strikes, the single quarter bell and the hour strikes?
Yeah, the Westminster Quarters on the organ, with a little bit of flourish, could be neat.
visitor counter does that :) but only 1 visitor gets it. number 2567 or something i canny remember who got it@@mkelly0x20
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER A furby coo coo clock would make a great video, another thing I thought would be neat, though a bit out of your comfort zone, would be a bit of British history. Allen Touring invented the Touring machine, could you build a touring machine with uniselectors?
Conceives this whole weird thing and builds it all flawlessly, making a video the whole time. Can't remember how many days are in February. The man has to be a genius.
haha yeah my bad
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER I bet Einstein put his underwear on backwards and Newton put salt in his tea. ;)
No matter how busy Sam is, he always has time for a clock project.
Wait till he gets a DMC-12! He's as close to Doc Brown as it gets.
I would love to see your museum! I learned about "stepper switches", relays, and all sorts of electro/mechanical stuff by taking apart surplus equipment as a teen in the 60s. I eventually went to electronics school and learned about discreet logic gates before there were integrated circuits. Now we have microprocessors on a tiny chip. I've seen quite a technological revolution in my 73 years of being a "geek". The old-school stuff is much more interesting to see in operation. I'm really blown away by watching old mechanical telephone pulse-dial line routing equipment running. Old pre-digital pinball machines and juke box mechanisms are amazing, too. I keep my ancient brain alive by playing with Arduino now. I love that you're using high-tech CAD software to design the mountings for your 75 year old devices.
Hey Sam. Just wanted to let you know that February in a leap year has 29 days. Normally February has 28 days, not 27. Really enjoyed the video. Superb work as always.
Your calendar doesn't start on the 0th of each month? Weird :)
Klickerklacker happy new years mate!
happy new year dude!!!!!woop woop woop!
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day... :)
Cool project sir!
That's really cool, I like the fact that it's getting the timing from an actual pendulum.
Nice job with the waxed thread lacing, so good to see traditional skills in use,
Sam's outfits never fail to be amazing, sometimes whacky, sometimes sexy, sometimes something else all together but I love them all! I need that jacket tho 😅 such a brill video as always
Never a bad time for a nixie clock! Love the idea of uniselector-operated Christmas lights, too. 👍
Ive genuinely watched sam say "100, then count like that till a million, a gazillion, a trillion etc... boodly boodly boodly boo" about the same amount of times as a boodly boobly boodly boo!! Humour and electronics, what more could anyone want 😂
Amazing as always! There are so many similarities to TTL-logic. I built some counters with it. Nice.
I wish a happy new year.
Well, when inventions like transistors or microchips were initially made they often replaced some old clunky piece of hardware instead of completely re-inventing the whole circuit. So that's why there's so many legacy and pretty much useless aspects in tech products that make no sense to a young brilliant mind who encounters those mysteries the first time. And that makes it extra fun.
This is just a mechanical computer with a clock and three non-binary counters in my opinion
I once made a clock with CD4017 ICs. They're solid state decatrons and thus related to these uniselectors here, but most of the time they're used for light show animations. It even has an alarm that strikes a bicycle bell with a hard drive read head arm.
Happy New Year circuit-whisperer! Thanks for another year of mind-blowing projects! Can't wait to see what you'll do next year!
As someone who's spent most of last year (i.e. 2023) working on a clock electronics project, I can definitely appreciate this project. Mine has the added complexity of the seconds digits, and also not having a 1pps (1 pulse per-second) signal. It's not hugely complex, but I limited the project to 1970s era 4000 series logic to keep things interesting. I honestly don't expect to have my project "finished" in 2024. At the very least I do think I can get the time counting on some vacuum tubes. But if I can manage to get more than two days off this year, perhaps I'll surprise myself and also make it look like a clock.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your videos in 2023, so I really hope you have an equally excellent if not better 2024!
Absolutely love the style and content. I’ll get another visit scheduled for next year and perhaps hold some more wires. Good Luck Sam.
As is tradition this time of year, time to make something crazy with uniselectors! Looks great!
After watching this channel for a few years, I'm really starting to think, as much as I enjoy your music, that 'musician' is just your 'side-hustle', because, well, all these fascinating, and pretty complex (to a noob) projects... today's video looks like something I'd expect when watching the Curios Marc channel..
Fabulous stuff as always, Sam. Wishing you and the museum a hugely happy and successful 2024!
I'd add a higher resistor for the colon dot neons, they'll match the nixies better and last way way longer.
Sam, great work mate! I can always trust you to make something bonkers (meant in a nice way) whilst still entertaining and educating! 🙂😎🤓❤
The design and engineering in those uniselecters is amazing .
Impressionnant Mec!! J'adore ton taf.
I love clocks and I love Nixie tubes. What I don't love is being an ocean away from this amazing museum.
I'm 199 miles away and heading there soon
Truly inspiring as always
this is so fucking awesome. you made a nixie clock even more interesting and beautiful
Looks great and loved the explanation! February's 28 for a normal year and 29 for a leap :)
This gives off such an awesome 80's vibe. I love it.
More like 1960s
Thanks for all the videos and projects. My New Year's Resolution is to come and visit the Museum which is 150 miles away so need to plan a whole trip. Happy New year to you Sam
Where is the museum I'm trying to work it out ? Found out now. I'm in Bristol 199 miles for me. Working out where to park.
@@chrishart8548 5-7 Church Hill, Ramsgate CT11 8RA
Very nice. If I may make a suggestion I'd have inverted the signifier so that it turns off briefly every two seconds instead of on. I don't think burn in is a huge issue. I've had my nixie clock running more or less continuously since 2007.
Burn-in no, but sputter, where metal vaporizes and coats the glass increases the more current you run through the lamp. Under-power it by using a higher rated resister will greatly decrease sputter while only slightly reducing light output.
Neon glow lamps and nixie lamps work by smacking electrons into neon gas surrounding the cathode causing photons to fly off. That process can go on forever.
You make it look like you are improvising but you clearly know what you are doing
Excellent Doomsday clock, sir!
I am so amazed.
Love watching your videos
Using low tech to do amazing things.
The master clocks I built for the London underground looked very different.
No pendulum but a GPS aerial outside the stations. Great build Sam. 2x👍
You know Matt from Techmoan will want one of these for sure and do a review.
February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and has 28 days (29 in leap years) and is thus the shortest month of the year, when all other months have 30 or 31 days. It contains the 32nd to 59th day of the year (32nd to 60th in leap years).
Amazing project, as always. Happy New Year!🎉
I just Ebay searched for one. Thought it would be a fun thing to play with, then ebay it on when bored. Holy molases! I think Sam may have all of them!
keep looking! maybe the ones on ebay all got. bought up after the vid, usually a lot on there, however they are quite common in carboot sales too.
Happy new year, Sam!
Happy New Year mate!
What a magnificent timepiece! Another awesome video. Would you consider adding an additional digit for hexaseconds? Happy New Year - looking forward to more brilliant videos.
I love unique clocks! I wish I had the skill needed to make something like that.
Beautiful! Reminds me that i need to build that talking clock based around vintage SP0256 chips. Good times, pun more or less intended.
If there is such a thing as a This Museum Is Not Obsolete war, I reckon the enemy will be trying to knock out the master clock.
I think this clock would impress Doc Brown no end!
Happy New Year, Sam!!!!!!
Was that anode a bit spicy 🤣🤣🤣
Nice work, love the electromechanical selectors 😊
I wish that I could have a full time job working for you!!! Great build mate. An idea for the racks, talk with a welder in the area and see if they can whip you up some out of some scrap??? Doesn't seem that hard to make.
The gents who make electronically driven Nixie clocks are cool... An electromechanical Nixie Clock is even cooler. I absolutely love the concept.
The blinking neon-pair colons take it to 11, brilliant.
Haha awesome I’d love one of these in my house
Love uniselectors, bread and butter of lift engineers in the 80s/90s. Ashamed to be so excited
Hah! Excellent. I really should finish the one I started to build 10 years ago!
Mine was going to use laminar displays rather than nixies. All the fun bit is complete, I just never got around to doing the woodwork to build a case for it!
aaah yes laminar displays! hard to find in any bulk right? i only have 2 and they are bloomin different haha, yes i remember the clock you made!!! looking forward to seeing it on its way!!!! glad its still about though!
I’ve got 4 the same that are already mounted in a panel, that were part of a clock system from some industrial site… so they’re destined for it really.
I’ve spent this afternoon trying to work out how to get a pair from my master clock in the house down to the shed where the clock will end up. I’ve been told it’s noisy to have uniselectors clunking away in the house!
haha its music to peoples ears!!! its funny though i love the sound of clonking in the bacground, but some people who have sat and worked over in the museums says its maddening haha@@lpbkdotnet
good luck!@@lpbkdotnet
Great video. if you're going to add leap years, remember there's a 400 year rule to them. Such that 2000 WAS and 2400 will be a leap year, but 2100, 2200 and 2300 will NOT be a leap year.
How do you fit so much brain into one head 😊lol Happy New Year I hope 2024 brings you everything you wish from the smallest transistor or bits for your huge organ, I do have a few antique phones that will come to your museum one day but I’m not ready to let them go yet lol 😂❤
Brilliant as ever!
Happy new beer dude. With triggers I was just randomly thinking about the Traintackr led pcb displays with leds lighting up every time a train comes into a tube or subway station, I was thinking that data feed could be a random note generator somehow. Possibly completely useless and I am operating on 10 minutes sleep but those things are cool, not as cool as nixie tubes, but nonetheless.
S... this is nerdy and wonderful stuff 😊
Interesting setup. Thought it'd be the 50Hz from mains as the base clock cycle, but not the case here. Although it makes sense given what's available at the old electro-tech museum. You've got more interesting options than what would be there for some desk clock.
Also it'd be a laugh if those switches would fit on Euro-rack rails. (I think it would have already been tried and ruled out though.)
Phone system usually needed to be run from batteries when the mains power failed. So no reliable AC reference.
Ah it’s lookmum doing his usual no computer shenanigans
Lovely project! Four electromechanical 4017s, haha. I like your cable lacing - it doesn't have to be perfect. Just stay determined and Keri on.
I'd love to get a uniselector and show it on my channel someday... unfortunately they're not around in my country, and buying internationally is out of the question. Way too expensive.
I want some uni selectors and nixie tubes to play with! You give me so ideas
Most people go see things like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. But when I get a passport and head over the pond, I'm going straight to visit This Museum... and RMC The Cave and their retro arcade. They're about a 3.5 hour drive away from each other but I don't care. I'll find a way to get there. Next summer, I think. If my passport comes in time, that is.
Absolutely! This place would be my first thing to visit whenever I head over eventually, also meeting one of my favourite youtubers.
Your wax lacing is fantastic. You should do a video on how to do it.
Just in time for 2024!
Happy New Year!
Well done. Andre from SA
This will be a nice video to watch. 🤠
Arrr memories. I do miss the step-by-step exchange. Well, wiper cleaning was not the best memory. The sound of uni-selectors rotating, bi-motional switches stepping up and in. Better than Cross-bar.
I have some old pinball counters like to make a clock off them. Greeting Home computer museum
that is so cool
Lad is a mad inventor
You probably don't need a screensaver per se but keep in mind some digits will wear more than others. I would suggest rotating the tube positions so the wear evens out.
Good idea. Cheers
Beyond awesome! 😊
You should implement a leading zero blanking arrangement on the 'tens of hours' Nixie.
Nice job all the same, especially with not a single silicon device used.
Naaaa nice to see em all lighting :). In order
To do it you just unsolder the zero from the uniselector but much nicer with the zero present Cheers.
I vote vor a mechanically driven cam thingy that plays the full four westminster chimes on microswitches which then actuate the things that make the tones happen. Perhaps thats something to put a washing machine cam drive, an industrial timer cam mech or just something from the 3D printer in?
I have some old school clocks that sync through the mains. They were binning them, I saved what I could. My nixie tube voltmeter, well, had to buy that. only 3 digits but there's space in there for 4..
this is so awesome, want to buy it
Why buy it when you can build it
Of course you have a working time signal clock why am I not surprised!
I've just had a thought, I wonder if you could somehow build a machine to generate pips like BBC radio has? That'll be a cool thing to link with that clock.
February has 28 days and 29 on leap year. 😊
I wouldn't be able to figure this out in a million years
beautiful.
Cool!
Amazing!
If you could get half second pulses you could make a big ben sequence with a uniselector to tick through the sequence and one to kick of the (quarter hour i think, idk, im not british) sequences every increment. Every note should be half a second long with half a second break after the forth one. Might even be possible to combine it with a ding for each full hour done.
If you watch the visitor counter that does the Big Ben sequence. But the proper sequence only happens on the number 2687
Need need for a half second. I just use a big capacitor
Sorry the Big Ben sequencer number is 2657
Those wires aren't properly laced, oh wait! Now I'm happy.
Hooking up the external phone line again?
Happy new year everyone. 🎉🥳🥂
@Sam - I'm looking for one of those pendulum clock mechanisms here in the USA, however, they are hard to find here. Would they go under another name? Would you know of a reasonably priced source? Found nothing on Ebay.
Master clock
Any chance for a Cuookoo clock?
this is so cool dude
also I might have a great clock idea that needs your help
A digital clock build with analog parts
that uses a crt as a display
I have worked out most of the things (I can draw the numbers with resistors/capasitors)
but I have some problems with driving a scope crt
also were do you get your uniselectors?
Wow carzy !!
You need a pinball synth machine with uniselector score wheels
Do you have a reliable source for those “Christmas Tree” terminal blocks? We use them for audio wiring in our theater, and ADC stopped making new ones. We only need three rows of terminals, but they are modular enough that larger ones ( like the one in the video) could be modified for fewer rows.
ebay is always your friend. search gpo block or something like that
Could one phobe the exchange and here the current Jingle, then if they were a visitor and remember their number, type that in and hear their unique jungle??
at this point i am wondering when your gonna add a commodore 64 to the setup
With all this weird bonkers tech he makes and runs (even in his museum) I kinda wonder what the power bill is like.
100 quid a month
Just have every musical item in the museum play the Westminster clock melody in unison.
@14:18 How many days in February??? Better double check before you start wiring!
You knew what I meant 👍
@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER - i just assumed you were counting from zero.. made sense to me.. ;)
I think it looks better if you wire the dots to the NC on the relay .
I was doing it more from a longevity standpoint
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER yes makes sense.
Nice video! I like your work and hope I could visit anytime your museum, but it would be a far travel :)
One comment to the video since I see no one mentioned it: Could it be that February actually has 28 Days and every four years 29 days?! 😅 (time index 14:21)