I did a hack to the Ice Tube Clock by encasing the tube in clear polyester casting. I made an Instructables guide from the project and called it “The Ice Cube Clock ^3”. It was a lot of extra work, but worth it now that the project is fini.
The fluorescent glow tube nestled inside this polyester resin casting is a gas display tube from the Cold War era, made by our then-enemy, Russia. It has this cool retro look with its Nixie-ish blue glow.
My project is the result of my buying a clock kit from Adafruit.com that utilizes the tube. I don’t know how the Adafruit folks happened upon this tube, but clock kit is a great idea, me thinks. Then they housed their kit in a custom acrylic case and called it the “Ice Cube Clock”, and you can see the fine product here.
Adafruit Ice Cube Clock
I gleefully assembled the circuit board from the kit, and with the board proudly built, realized I had lost the acrylic parts for the case. Probably absent-mindedly tossed them in the trash.
D’oh!
In my state of exasperation I brainstormed a hack of the Ice Cube Clock — I would build on the “ice cube” concept by encasing the project in clear resin. I later refined this idea to encase only the tube so the circuit board would still be accessible.
My aim was to make the tube appear it was floating in the casting, so I have it connected with fine wires, with no other visible means of support….
Ice Tube Clock kit – v1.1: This is our first clock kit design, made with a retro Russian display tube! Completely open source hardware and software, ready to be hacked and modded! (read more)
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