IV-11 VFD Tube Clock - Wooden case Vintage DIY Soldering KIT, Mother Father Women Wife Husband Daughter Son Girls Boys Kids Geek Gift Summer STEM Project omnixie

all parts present in the box, instructions are very clear, no surface mount parts, quality PCB and housing. The tubes are VFD and not technically Nixie but don't let that throw you off. They look like nixies and work like nixies and don't have that irritatingly lethal high voltage thing going on. There's a multi-color LED under each tube that can provide lighting effects or you can leave it on a set color or turn it off completely. Comes with a temperature probe (but not the GPS, which is optional) the backup battery for the real time clock is included but the battery for the remote is missing or it was from my kit. I had a few lying around. Threading the tube leads into the board is about that biggest pain, wish the tubes had pins and sockets but same thing with nixies. Love this clock. works great.

I really enjoyed building this kit - it's well organized and the build instructions are quite good, but could use a little polishing. The trickiest bit is the mounting of the tubes - they require two spacers per tube to be threaded onto the leads and then the leads to be passed through and soldered to the board - it's a challenge not for the feint of heart. I had good luck with trimming the tube wires incrementally so that they were not all the same length. I'd like to know what GPS module if any is recommended - anyone tried any?

I received the clock kit and reviewed the instructions. Looks very well designed. I look forward to the build and will update my comments once I complete this project.2022 update - this clock keeps amazing time, to the second over many months. Was very enjoyable to assemble and works great to this day. I may purchase another one to give as a gift - assembled by me of course. ((Not nixie-tube clock (much more durable) nixie tubes require 90 volts to operate - read the description.))

I didn't understand that there were no English directions included or available online.

TLDR;Excellent product but pretty difficult to build even for a 30 year old tech nerd.I am writing this review on my wife’s account as she bought it for me as a Christmas present.Let me preface this with I am a tech junkie and have been soldering since I was a kid. I’m not extremely good at it but I get by.I was pretty overwhelmed when I opened it up and saw all the parts but I’m never one to back down from a challenge. It was the most excitement I’ve had opening a Christmas present since I was a child.Assembling it was quite a challenge and made a couple little mistakes that I was luckily able to solve.My advice to you is to make sure you’re comfortable with soldering as this is not the type of thing to learn on. Also, make sure to TRIPPLE CHECK you are putting the right piece, the right orientation, in the right spot.There are no step-by-step instructions, just a basic list of parts that tell you what goes where but if you follow it, you will end up with an extremely well built clock with a lot of really cool features that you’d be surprised it has.This you will need: soldering iron, solder, soldering tools, and a multi-meterIt has a temp sensor, alarm, light sensor for auto brightness, selectable color bottom LED, multiple number changing effects, and more.Oh...and it has a remote!!!I am VERY impressed with the clock and every time I look at it I am very impressed with the fact that I built it and how cool it looks.I can firmly say that this is an excellent product but not the easiest thing to build.

The clock is overall good and I do like it; however, getting any help from the seller during assembly is NOT going to happen. The assembly instructions, which you have to go to a web site and print out are NOT clear. The pictures you are supposed to follow look like cartoons. I had some problems and when I contacted the seller, by email only, his response was, your not doing things right go to youtube and learn how to correctly soldier. After complaining to Amazon they sent me a replacement clock kit. Then I went to a friend who knows about electronics who then explained what the assembly instructions meant; which he said were stupid. With his help I was able to assemble the clock kit which is now working fine. So if you buy this clock kit BEWARE you will get NO help from the seller, Yan Zenyuan, at all!!!

I have built lots of electronic projects like this and this one worked great for about 30 seconds then the tubes went out and I found I had lost my 26 volt rail it had dropped to 3.5ish volts and the voltage boost/regulator chip was getting hot and then the little resistor next to the chip smoked and so I replaced the .24 ohm resistor with another I had and it made the unit work again sort of it cam eon this time for about 5 seconds then the numbers went real dim and then out. The resistor was doing fine but the voltage reg chip was getting pretty warm. The remote and leds all work fine and you can change colors and turn it on and off and it beeps etc... as it is supposed to but no clock. I gave up on it I think a new chip would fix it but I wrote it off as a loss and won't get another one. Also the spindly wires coming out of the VFD tubes is a joke and near impossible to get through the spacers and board.

This is a very fun kit once you get the hang of it. It's an intermediate to advanced kit so be advised that you need good solder, a nice hot soldering iron, and a relatively decent multi-meter. The instructions are well written and step-by-step surrounding the power supply assembly, but you're on your own when it comes to a majority of the assembly. So pay close attention to polarity and the parts list. I found that cutting the leads on the tubes in half helped me feed them through the standoffs and circuit board.