Video and photos after the break:

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via Hack A Day

Or, do you just have an interesting factoid about these guys?

SOLVED: Display #1: NEO8000

The enclosure is about 4″ tall and 1/3″ thick. On the front is stamped “Y.S” and on the back is written “NEO-8000M Made In Japan 3.9.3″  There do not appear to be any other markings.

SOLVED: Display #2: NEO5000

The enclosure is about 3″ tall and 1/3″ thick.  The only markings I can see are “”Made In Japan 2.d.3″

UPDATE: These are the NEO5000 and NEO8000 – I found clear photos of them on Neonixie-l from a post ajfranzman made 6 years ago… I’m still looking for specs if anyone has them.

(Egon warned against crossing the streams.  He did not warn against crossing the wires and reversing the polarity.  If you do, this is what happens)

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The application itself is intuitive.  Simply open the application and wait for a GPS signal.  Once it is established, hit the record button and then put the phone to sleep.  It will keep recording data as a background process while you take your walk, run, flight, etc.  When you’re done, simply re-enter the application and hit stop.  You should probably give the track file a useful name.  After a few uses, it will be hard to tell “track23.gpx” from “track17.gpx.”  From there, you can export the data using the methods described above.  We want to save the track as a GPX file an import it to Google Earth.

In Finder (or Explore for you Windows folks…) open your Android device and grab the GPX file.  Drag it to the 3d view of Google Earth and voila – your track is open.  Use the following tools below to control the animation:

This control offers basic Play functionality.  It is visible above the Layers panel when you have a PATH selected in the Places panel.  Long story short – just click play.

The control below is visible in the top left portion of the 3D view.  You can use it to select a given point in time as well as to crop the start/stop points of a path.

The control below is visible at the bottom left portion of the 3D view.  It is used to start/stop/loop/save animations.  (This does NOT save video clips.  More on that later)

Lastly, the settings used in the animation are as follows (click to enlarge)

RESULTS:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other Notes:

• The animation was captured with iShowU HD.  I love this program and think it is one of the best OS X screen capture programs on the market.  The video was captured as an intermediate file format and re compressed using Quick Time Pro.  From there, it was uploaded to Vimeo as a 720P HD video file.
• Turning off 3d Buildings seems to speed things up…but it looks boring
• Turn off other interesting layers that Google Earth has on by default.  They just become a distraction in the final video
• When importing the data, have it stick the data points to the ground for best results
• The data points are jagged.  I haven’t found a good way to smooth them out but decreasing the sample frequency or increasing your speed should help.
• Downtown areas do not work well for GPS accuracy

Get My Tracks:

Description On Side of Unit:

ALCO
MOSAIC READOUT
MS-250AC
20-MA 2.5V Lamps
Japan

Links

• Original 5A Post: http://www.ineedcaffeine.com/content/2009/08/ebay-find-msm-5a-incandescent-display/
• Updated 5A Post: http://www.ineedcaffeine.com/content/2009/08/msm-5a-mosaic-readout-indicator/
• Surplus Shed (MSM-5A): http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2225.html
• Surplus Shed (MS-250AR): http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2244.html

This will get your attention:

Now, go buy the kit: eightCubed

More information after the jump:

Apparently there is a whole community of people devoted to building LED sculptures that I didn’t know about.  I admire the skill of anyone who can assemble this – it is a stack of LED’s – 512 in the above photo – that are held together using only their leads.  Did I mention that each LED has 4 leads coming out of it?  That is an amazing number of connections and effort.

The good news:  You can download the schematics and the software to build on yourself

The better news:  You can buy a 4x4x4 cube from Hypnocube.com and VisualCube.org and save yourself a massive headache.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who wants to get me one for a birthday present?

Resources

• http://hypnocube.com/
• http://www.t.markson.us/projects/eightCubed/eightCubed.htm
• http://www.lomont.org/Projects/LEDCube/LEDCube.php
• http://www.davidwyatt.me.uk/ledcube/
• http://www.visualcube.org/

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kevtris.org via Hack A Day

dish detergent (anti-grease & anti-bacterial)
a large sink or bathtub
paper towel
salad spinner (preferable)
or a colander
a flat screwdriver
THIS PAGE PRINTED OUT

Begin by using your screwdriver to pry the keys off.  Be careful – the board is resilient but you can still scratch it.

You will notice that some keys have metal clips behind them.  These are to guide the key straight down as you push on them.  Just take these keys off slowly and everything will come off easily.  Once the key is off, just pull the clip off and set it aside.

After taking off the keys, put them in a gallon size ziploc bag with some detergent.

Shake the bag once and a while.  Let it sit for several minutes.

While the keys are soaking, start your bath and fill it with warm water and the detergent.  Move the keyboard around in the water to loosen some of the dirt and then let it soak for a while

After 5 minutes of soaking, take out the keyboard and rinse it off in warm water.  You may need to repeat this step several times to get the soap bubbles out of the bottom part of the board

Next, take the keys and put them in the bowl for your salad spinner.  Run this under tap water for a few moments to get all of the soap off

Here comes the fun part.  Put the spinner together and give it a whirl.  Let it stop.  Shake it.  Repeat.  Do this at least 5 times.

Spread out the keys on paper towel to let them dry.  For food safety reasons, now is probably a good time to clean your spinner as well.

Let the keys dry for a little bit.  They should be done in 30 minutes or so

Remember that page you printed out?  Now is a good time to get it.  You will need a reference when putting everything back together.  If you have an extra keyboard, this will work as well.

Find all of the keys that had the metal clips on the back of them.  Put all of the clips on NOW.  If you do this step while putting keys on, you will find that it is difficult to find mismatched clips.  All of the clips should rotate easily.  If anything feels stiff, try it on another key.

Slide the clips under the hooks on the bard first.  Then, rock the key down into position

One down.  Just over 100 more to go…..

A partially completed board.

Watch out for keys like L and 7.  They look alike and can easily be misplaced.  The same warning for I and the division key.

LET IT DRY.  Seriously.  Let it sit for at least a week.  Stack it vertically so water can drain out.  After it has sat for AT LEAST A WEEK, you can try it out.

The Nixie Tube Digital Wristwatch!

By Jeff Thomas / Resonant Instruments LLC

http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/watch.html

This is the really little brother of the NixiChron clock.  The fact that he managed to fit all of the components in to such a small packagaing – and fit four vacuum tubes in it is amazing.  They require about 180vdc to power…your average AA battery puts out just 1.5 for comparison.

The Nixie Watch

By Cathode Corner – $395

http://www.cathodecorner.com/nixiewatch/index.html

This watch was inspired by the one above.  It uses an entirely different design – tubes and power supply.  It looks a little more like a watch than the above one but uses only two display tubes.

Negative

by Tokyo Flash – ¥16,900 / $170

http://www.tokyoflash.com/en/watches/tokyoflash/negative/

If you want to show your geeky side with pride, this is the watch for you!  This is the first of the mass produced watches on this list.  Tokyo Flash makes some amazing watches.  They focus on innovative ways of displaying the time to make reading it unintuitive.  If this watch isn’t for you, check out some of the other ones they offer.

Bling binary LED watch

By Todd Bailey – $?

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/05/concept_bling_binary_led.html

This watch is for the DIY crowd and would probably appeal to the BOFH-type personality.  You know, the guy who wants you to know that he is better at technology, computers, and anything else that uses electricity than you do.  This watch isn’t for the casual enthusiast – no only do you have to build it, but it tells the time in bianary.  Reading it takes a bit of practice but can become second nature to the true aplha-nerds

Synchronar 2100

By Roger Riehl – $?

http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=1366081

This was an amazing device.  It was the first mass produced LED wristwatch and was designed never to need adjustment.

From http://www.soluhr.com/sync.htm

Independent inventor Roger Riehl designed the most advanced wrist timepiece devised up to that time. His goal was to built an extremely accurate timepiece that required no service, could withstand great variation of temperature, was shockproof, was waterproof to great depths, was visible in any lighting conditions, and had multiple functions. In short, his goal seemed to be to build the ultimate wristwatch that would simultaneously overcome all of the traditional challenges to the wristwatch.

It is things like this that make me want to go back and get my EE degree.  (Not that I don’t like my B.A. in Journalism – but EE is just a little more nerdy)

From the page:

Vertical fixed at 5V full screen (or 0.5V per division, if it had divisions.)

Horizontal Sweep fixed at (approximately) 43mS full screen when over-clocked at 8MHz (or 4.3mS per imaginary division.)

Trigger fixed at 1/2 the peak-to-peak signal (with a time-out when there is no signal.)

Non-portable (unless you want to carry my entire workbench some place.)

Very Affordable (about $4.50; $3.50 for the PicAxe, $1.00 for the phone, everything else I had on hand.)

Visible in Day Light (the LCD Backlight is not connected.)

All Solid-State (using ultra-reliable E-Z Clip Technology.

Source:

http://www.geocities.com/Minimalist_Oscilloscope_08M_Proj/Minimalist_Oscilloscope_08M_Project.html

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