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Nixie Tube Music Visualizer

by Senator Penguin on July 23, 2009

Table of Contents

Nixie Tube Music Visualizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Intro: Nixie Tube Music Visualizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 1: Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 2: Design: Amplification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Step 3: Design: Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 4: Design: AC to DC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 5: Design: Logarithmic to Linear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 6: Design: Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Step 7: Design: Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Step 8: Construction: Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Step 9: Construction: Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Step 10: More Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
Intro: Nixie Tube Music Visualizer
A hypnotizing music visualizer inspired by those little bars in the top of iTunes. Fourteen Russian IN-13 Nixie bargraph tubes are used as the display.

The length that each nixie tube lights up represents the volume of a certain frequency in the music, 7 different bands for both the left and right channels.

I designed and built this over a month my junior year in high school. This instructable will go over my design process and the construction, hopefully aiding anyone who
wants to build one of their own.

Step 1: Design Process

The goal is to make an interesting display that would show the volume levels of various frequency bands in an audio signal, as in many music players and on the front of
some hi-fi audio equipment. There are three major points the project would focus on:

Minimizing cost: In the process of designing the visualizer, I found this simple VU meter with a nixie display utilizing an exotic IC to convert an audio signal into a
volume level. While convenient, it's manufactured by a small company, and each piece would cost over $5 (for me, nearly $80 in those alone!) For simplicity and
for my wallet, this only uses simple, cheap, and mass-produced parts. Also because of cost, I decided that 10K ohm resistors would be used for just about
everything, so I could buy a few hundred for around $3.
Analog only: Using a digital signal processor was a possibility, but programming a DSP is fairly difficult, and the cost of DACs for the input and ADCs to drive the
output began to raise the price too far. So only analog parts such as op-amps and comparators would be used.
Adjustability: After Nixie IN-13 tubes were chosen as the display, I realized that the only documentation was in Russian (or poorly translated English) and not very
informative. Not knowing anything at all about how much it took to light it up any specific length (aside from less than 4 milliamps), everything about this design
would be adjustable.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
Step 2: Design: Amplification
A standard dual op-amp (I used an LM358N from National Semiconductor) does the job nicely, amplifying both channels independently. Two potentiometers make each
channel's gain adjustable.

Image Notes
1. Amplified audio signal
2. One half of a dual op-amp. This circuit is doubled, so each half of the op-amp amplifies one channel of music (left and right)

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
Step 3: Design: Filter
Each audio channel splits out into 7 different bandpass filters. The filters are centered on 60Hz, 150Hz, 400Hz, 1kHz, 2.5kHz, 6kHz, and 15kHz. Each filter is a Fliege
band-pass filter, which has a relatively low count of components, and works well from a single supply (0V and 12V, as opposed to +/-6V). Each Fliege filter uses two op-
amps, so another cheap dual op-amp can be used.

The following chart gives the values of the resistors and capacitors for each bandwidth (R4 and R5 are both 10kohms). If you are calculating your own bandwidths, I used
a Q value of approximately 5 (none of them are exactly 5 because of the limitations of standard resistor and capacitor values).

Image Notes
1. This bias capacitor is not needed in this design.
2. 10 kOhm

Step 4: Design: AC to DC
Now that there are seven different audio signals for both channels, each containing a different frequency band, they are all converted to a DC volume signal. A 100uF
polarized capacitor removes the 6V DC bias on the audio signal. A small signal diode rectifies the signal, discarding all of the negative values. Finally, the signal is
smoothed out by a 4.7uF capacitor in parallel with a 10K ohm resistor. A DC voltage of the recent average volume of the signal is the result.

Step 5: Design: Logarithmic to Linear

This is the stage that would be way easier if I could afford the $80 in THAT Corporation's fancy true-RMS and log-calculating chips. The problem is that what we perceive
as volume doesn't directly translate to the voltage of an audio signal. When you double the amplitude of a signal, it doesn't sound twice as loud, it sounds Log(2) times
louder. Skipping this stage would make the display spend nearly all of the time at the very bottom, and spiking high when the sound gets particularly loud.
One way of solving this is by generating several reference voltages, one at the quietest level that the display should detect, one at +3dB, one at +6dB, and so on. The
volume signal can then be compared to each of these references. For every reference voltage the volume signal is greater than, the display lights an additional unit of
length.
An array of seven resistors and two potentiometers is arranged as a voltage divider to generate the necessary eight reference voltages. For each band, eight voltage
comparators (in the form of two quad-comparator ICs, I used STMicroelectronics TS3704) compare the signal to these references to determine a linear volume level. The
eight outputs of the comparators are then averaged with 10K ohm resistors, giving a range of values from 0V to 12V with each step of 1.5V equaling about 2.1dB.

The values of the resistors in the divider from ground to V+ are:

2k potentiometer, 470, 750, 1.1k, 2k, 2.7k, 4.7k, 7.5k, 25k potentiometer

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
Step 6: Design: Display
A voltage divider cuts the signal down by 1/2 so it's range is between 0V and 6V. A low-pass RC filter smooths out the very sharp changes in the volume signal (when the
level of the nixie tube is changed too quickly, the lit segment jumps out to the middle of the tube, rather than lighting from one end).

The nixie tube has 3 pins, an anode, a control cathode, and an auxiliary cathode. The anode is tied to the output of a high voltage power supply at around 125V. The
auxiliary cathode is tied to ground through a 220k ohm resistor. As far as I can tell, the auxiliary cathode acts as a sort of pilot light, forcing the tube to begin to glow at
one end first, rather than from the middle or the other end. The control cathode is the main tube, and the current through it determines the length of the tube that is lit. A
high voltage NPN transistor modulates the current from the control cathode through a 470 ohm resistor and potentiometer (for tuning purposes). The base-emitter
junction of the transistor has a forward bias voltage of about 0.65V that it needs to turn on, so an op-amp is used to adjust the signal for this.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 Image Notes
1. The three wires of the IN-13 nixie tube. 1- Anode (High Voltage input) 2-
Control Cathode 3- Auxiliary Cathode

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 Image Notes
1. The auxilliary cathode in the IN-13. This acts as a sort of "pilot light" It always
stays on, and makes sure the main cathode always lights from the bottom, rather
than the middle or top.
2. The main cathode

Step 7: Design: Power

The majority of the visualizer runs off of a 12V DC power supply. The audio in, amplification and filter stages need 6V power (1/2 the supply). The 6V is created by a
voltage divider of two 100K ohm resistors. This setup cannot actually source any real amount of current, so it is connected to to non-inverting input of an op-amp
(TL3472), with its output connected to its inverting input. The output of the op-amp centers perfectly at 1/2 the supply voltage, and it can source current.

The display stage needs 125V to power the nixie tubes. Creating high voltages with a boost converter requires a very precise layout of the traces, so I purchased a
prebuilt one from allspectrum.com

Step 8: Construction: Parts

15x 470 ohm resistor
1x 780 ohm resistor
14x 1k ohm resistor
1x 1.1k ohm resistor
4x 1.6k ohm resistor
1x 2.0k ohm resistor
9x 2.7k ohm resistor
4x 3.9k ohm resistor
1x 4.7k ohm resistor
4x 6.2k ohm resistor
1x 7.5k ohm resistor
2x 8.2k ohm resistor
170x 10k ohm resistor
8x 11k ohm resistor
4x 15k ohm resistor
2x 20k ohm resistor
2x 33k ohm resistor
4x 56k ohm resistor
2x 100k ohm resistor
14x 220k ohm resistor

2x 250k ohm potentiometer

1x 25k ohm potentiometer
15x 2k ohm potentiometer

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
14x 100uF electrolytic polarized capacitor
14x 4.7uF electrolytic polarized capacitor
18x 1uF capacitor
13x .1uF capacitor
8x .01uF capacitor
4x 1000pF capacitor

23x LM358N dual op-amp

1x TL3472CP dual op-amp (higher output current)
28x TS3704 quad voltage comparator
14x MJE340 NPN transistor
14x 1N4148 signal diode

24x 8-pin DIP socket

28x 14-pin DIP socket
1x stereo 3.5mm audio jack

14x IN-13 Nixie bargraph tube

3x Prototype PCB, 1-hole island, Eurocard size

1x 12V AC/DC adapter

All of the passive components were bought from Digikey , while the ICs and transistors were bought from Mouser, because they were considerably cheaper.
Allspectrum.com sold me the prototype PCBs, the AC/DC adapter, and the high voltage power supply designed for nixie tubes. Sergey Bochkov at tubes-store.com sold
me the actual nixie tubes. Even though Tubes-Store is run out of Chelyabinsk, an odd industrial city in Central Russia, and it appears that I was only the 5th person to
ever buy from the site, they are cheap and shipping was reasonable.

Step 9: Construction: Layout

The entirety of the construction is done by soldering adjacent pads on the bottoms of the PCBs, using wire on the top if necessary.

Each board has a long trace along the top and bottom. The top is connected to the 12V power supply, while the bottom is connected to ground.

Every bandwidth occupies a vertical strip of PCB, with, from top to bottom, the filter, AC to DC, Log to Lin, and Display circuits. The nixie tubes are then attached to the
bottom of the board, where they can be mounted.
Each band takes up about one-fifth of the space on the board, so the left and right boards each have 5 bands, while the middle board has two bands on the left, two on
the right, and circuitry common to both the left and the right channel are shared in the middle fifth of the board.
The middle segment has the audio input jack, the amplification for the left and right channels, the 6V power, and the voltage divider for all of the log-to-lin circuits.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. Bandpass filters 1. 12V
2. AC to DC 2. Ground
3. Logarithmic to Linear
4. Display

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. The first two bands I assembled were noticeably less organized and 1. In between every band, I soldered two strips for ground and 12V to make it
sloppier. easier to power all of the different segments
2. The 12V power supply is soldered here. A connector will be added once I
put this in a case.

Image Notes
1. Lowest two bandwidths in the left channel
2. Lowest two bandwidths in the right channel Image Notes
3. To the nixie tube high voltage power supply 1. Red represents wiring on the top of the board, blue is solder on the bottom of
the board.
2. One band
3. Voltage divider for the log-to-lin circuits
4. 6V power supplt
5. Amplification for one channel. The other channel would use the other half of
the dual op-amp

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 Image Notes
1. Amplification (one for each channel)
2. 6V power supply (one for the whole visualizer)
3. Bandpass Filter (one for each band)
4. AC to DC (one for each band)
5. Voltage divider (one of these is shared between all of the bands)
6. Log-to-lin (one for each band)
7. Nixie display (one for each band)

Step 10: More Info

If you want to build your own, I hope I included enough information to allow you to make it your own, customizing any part of it, changing the number of tubes, channels,
or anything. Here are links to high resolution pictures and the eagle files I used for construction.

Visualizer

Left Board Reverse

Middle Board Reverse
Right Board Reverse

Part Layout
Side View

EagleCAD schematic and board files

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at admin -at- tchips -dot- com

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Comments
29 comments Add Comment

onlinemastering says: Mar 11, 2011. 8:20 AM REPLY

Nice spectrum analyzer, cheers

online mastering

tigerstickfigure says: Dec 19, 2010. 2:06 PM REPLY

Wow, man! This is gorgeous! This instructable got me into both Nixies and Honeycut!

Stormrage says: May 1, 2010. 4:12 PM REPLY

Its awesome... just im wondering where can i find those tubes, can it be bit simpler and can it work with microphone?

luhe98922 says: Feb 11, 2010. 6:19 AM REPLY

Hi there! Could I use a more common LM339 voltage comparator instead of the ts3704 which is giving me a hard time to find?

Senator Penguin says: Mar 24, 2010. 4:17 PM REPLY

You would need to adjust the section in between the comparators and the display op amp. The TS3704 has push-pull outputs, which considerably
simplifies things. The LM339 has pullup resistors on the outputs, which makes it impossible to just attach all of the outputs with resistors to average
them.

bman22 says: Dec 11, 2009. 12:21 AM REPLY

I have been looking for exactly this for a different project i am working, my only problem is that i need a variable voltage between 0 and 5 volts instead of
your 12v current system. Can anybody here help me in acheiving this. Its a bit over my head, so i would really appreciate some help.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 satanklawz says: Nov 1, 2009. 4:37 PM REPLY
Great project! I've ordered most of the same parts. What are the voltage requirements for the capacitors? You wouldn't happen to still have the parts list from
mouser and digikey?

satanklawz says: Nov 1, 2009. 5:53 PM REPLY

Based on a comment you made before, is the information below correct?

14x 100uF electrolytic polarized capacitor 25v

14x 4.7uF electrolytic polarized capacitor 25v
18x 1uF capacitor 25v
Are the below capacitors multilayer ceramic, ormica? Would ceramic suffice (I didn't see polarity noted for any of them)?

13x .1uF capacitor (should this be 14?)

8x .01uF capacitor
4x 1000pF capacitor

alfredhenriksen says: Oct 24, 2009. 2:41 PM REPLY

I love it!

Thank you for writing and shareing this project. :)

fade400 says: Oct 5, 2009. 10:53 AM REPLY

Does the value of Cin matter ?

Senator Penguin says: Oct 5, 2009. 1:49 PM REPLY

The image annotations are a bit buggy, it should indicate that Cin isn't needed in this design, I didn't include it in the final schematic or board.

Smithjoe1 says: Sep 15, 2009. 7:11 PM REPLY

You can probably use half the parts if you use LM3196 chips for the log to linear, they are identical to the circuit that is printed on the original post but cut it
from 4 chips to 1 on each tube. I've got a set of IN9 tubes that I'll be building this with. But I'm having a hard time understanding the frequency splitters, how
do you work out what resistors to use for each frequency?

lindland1 says: Aug 28, 2009. 9:19 PM REPLY

can i use 9 in tubes in sted of 14in X 13in

szechuan53 says: Aug 27, 2009. 12:41 PM REPLY

Aw man, this is soooo cool. Did you do this as a school proj or just for fun?

lemonie says: Jul 26, 2009. 3:04 PM REPLY

Really good looking - any plans to mount these in a case? L

Senator Penguin says: Jul 26, 2009. 3:48 PM REPLY

Yep, I'm building a wooden case with an acrylic front to protect it. Unfortunately, I'm much better with electronics than wood, so its a slow process.

The Ideanator says: Jul 27, 2009. 11:36 AM REPLY

Well, measure 2+ times, cut once(unless you have wood to spare) I wanna put this in an old Victrola radio/record player, they would go together
SOOOO well. Actually, I want to convert the whole thing to a steampunk-esque media center. Ooh! You could try to mount this in the side of a PC
case! That would be cool.

thepelton says: Aug 21, 2009. 10:26 AM REPLY

As someone who works in wood myself, I can tell you that first, you should always buy a little more wood than you actually need for the project,
since there is a possibility that somewhere in it is a defect or injury that you will have to work around. It is, after all, coming from living trees.

thepelton says: Aug 21, 2009. 10:23 AM REPLY

Fascinating. I had never heard of nixie bargraph tubes before. They look neat.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/
 x2percentmilk says: Aug 20, 2009. 12:57 PM REPLY
this is exactly what i was looking for for my acrlic cased home built chip amp project...thank you so much. i didnt want analog vu meters, or those basic 2
channel led kits. i cant believe how beautiful it looks and works. thanks again

bassbindevil says: Aug 17, 2009. 11:41 PM REPLY

Cool. I did not know there were such things as Russian bar graph nixies.

Around 1977, Popular Electronics published plans for a miniature real-time-analyzer that used a matrix of LEDs for the display, complete with a PC board
layout. It was probably the kit form of an RTA sold by Gold Line. (An updated version is the model ASA10B, http://www.gold-line.com/asa10b.htm ) Anyway,
if you can find a copy of that article and etch the board, that would take care of the bandpass filters.

Another option: I'm pretty sure that Rohm made a real-time display chip with something like 5 bands, intended for consumer products. If you can't buy the
chip anymore, maybe salvage one (or an equivalent) from a yard sale stereo receiver or car booster. (For example, a Realistic 12-1956 "80 watt" booster has
a built-in LED "spectrum analyzer".)

dz0004455 says: Aug 15, 2009. 12:28 PM REPLY

that is great! i might make one to put in my homestudio to monitor different frequencies

alex-sharetskiy says: Aug 2, 2009. 6:59 PM REPLY

great instructable, but a little too complex for my tastes and chance that you're going to sell pre-built circuit boards?

Senator Penguin says: Aug 11, 2009. 3:19 PM REPLY

I'm working on a smaller, modular, and cheaper version, which I might sell in a kit form or just make public on batchpcb.com so that anyone can get their
own PCBs made.

hivoltage says: Aug 10, 2009. 10:31 AM REPLY

Wow this is an amazing project! I really want to build one to put in my room somewhere. I have been looking for instructions on how to do something like this
for a while now, and I really like the effect of the nixie tubes. 5* from me!

The Ideanator says: Jul 27, 2009. 11:53 AM REPLY

I love this idea, I saw it posted w/ the same vid on http://hackaday.com/2008/06/13/multiband-nixie-vu-meter/ a while ago, are you the same guy?

munkymoose says: Jul 27, 2009. 2:28 AM REPLY

This is GREAT! Im working on a homemade portable speaker system at the minute and i was wondering if there was anyway to add this to it for a better
looking speaker?

Bigev says: Jul 26, 2009. 9:55 PM REPLY

Fantastic. 5* You have done what I've always wanted to do, but in high school. I'm frankly astounded.

sedition says: Jul 26, 2009. 3:48 PM REPLY

Awesome Instructable. I was working on a network activity indicator along the same lines, but shelved it a year ago. You may have just inspired me to pick it
back up. Great work!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Nixie-Tube-Music-Visualizer/