Time to go old school with some discrete integrated circuits and the 555 timer. No AVR’s or PIC’s on this one. This simple looking circuit uses the 555 timer and some 74LSxx chips to create 20 sequential outputs. This may seem trivial but uses some fundamental concepts in electronics. It uses the 555 timer, some TTL logic, and basic circuit assembly. The project is very well documented with several variations. <via Cool Circuit>

Geof Milburn is completing his engineering master’s degree at the Royal Military College of Canada. He was the maker of the homebrew air conditioner from several years and has kept up at his tinkering. He made a couple more neat projects and lucky for us, he documents them quite well. He calls the focus for today “The Ultimate Home Laser Show.” He does away with all the fancy electronics to aim the mirrors and uses a mirror stuck on a speaker. It provides more than enough movement to make the laser dance. Then the beam is shot through a diffractor and you have your light show.

Ronald Dekker made a nixie tube clock which has a few interesting differences from other nixie clocks. It has one digit and it is driven direct from the power lines. There are no transformers, switching power supplies or an of that “extra” stuff to clutter the design. There are also no switches to set the time. The time is set by interupting the power in a sequence. He put the whole thing inside a large test tube to avoid any shocks, thus the name Tube-in-a-Tube (TiT). To finish it off there is an RGB LED to provide backround light. This is a well documented build and worth the read.

There is lots of background information on nixie tubes on the Decode Systems site, if you need it.

Mykle Hansen likes his unix, his Mac and riding his bike. I can’t figure out too much more from his blog. He did make a kick-ass vest that displays his current speed. He calls it Speed Vest. It uses an Arduino to sense the speed and then display it on the vest using electro-luminescent wires. To make the project just a little cooler, the EL wires are laid out in a nixie tube style. There is separate post that has a video of the Speed-Vest in action. <via OhGizmo!>

Tuomas Tuononen built a website while at the University of Oulu in Finland. I can’t tell you much about him because most of his little website is in Finnish. Luckily he made one page in English. That is the documentation for this AVR LED display project. It has over 400 LEDs, programmable fonts and can scroll static or dynamic text. He includes all software, firmware and schematics necessary to make this a reality. <via Cool Circuit>