Nixie-clock

This arduino project is a custom firmware for the EleksTube IPS Nixie Tube Digital Clock.

This repository take some code from the frankcohen/EleksTubeIPSHack repository.

This project provide a simple base splitting the different components of the clock:

• Back Lights
• Bluetooth (BLE)
• Wifi
• Buttons
• Screens
• Time
• Files (LITTLEFS)

Each componenent can call the others using the Clock instance.

Bluetooth (BLE)

The current implementation provides some simple example of the bluetooth implementation. (Not used in the original clock.)

A class can extends the BluetoothService class, it abstract the interaction with the BLEManager class.

Here is a simple example to turn on/off the back lights with python

(start python using python -m asyncio to use await)

from bleak import BleakScanner
from bleak import BleakClient

# Get the device
device = [device for device in await BleakScanner.discover() if device.name == "Clock Service"]
assert len(device) == 1

# Create BleakClient
client = BleakClient(device[0].address)

# Connect
assert await client.connect()

# Send 0 value to address POWER_UUID
await client.write_gatt_char("bb5e995d-5863-4aa1-bafe-0e6a9fd4aa71", b'\x00', response=True)

Upload a new images

First you need a bmp image in 135x240.

# Init the upload for the number 0
await client.write_gatt_char("c2285d2f-44c5-4abb-af86-9d159f351081", "/0.bmp".encode(), response=True)

with open(f"data/0.bmp", 'rb') as f:
    bytes = f.read(512)
    while bytes:
        await client.write_gatt_char("c2285d2f-44c5-4abb-af86-9d159f351082",
                                    len(bytes).to_bytes(2, byteorder='big') + bytes, response=True)
        bytes = f.read(512)

await client.write_gatt_char("c2285d2f-44c5-4abb-af86-9d159f351083", b'close', response=True)

Set wifi credentials

await client.write_gatt_char("c1eac326-9ded-4148-90c1-6289cdbf5103", "ssid;password".encode(), response=True)

Set TimeZoneOffset

Paris is +2 Therefore we add 2 hours to the default time:

await client.write_gatt_char("b13c119b-2a41-4c37-8f5e-f9c914566d51", (60*60*2).to_bytes(4, byteorder='big'), response=True)

Events

The clock can have up to 5 events. An event has a few attribute

struct Event {
    uint8_t day;
    uint8_t month;
    uint16_t year;
    char message[24];
};

The year field is optional, to have a repeating event over the year, you can set the year value to UINT16_MAX (65535). To set an event you can use the following command

await client.write_gatt_char(
    "fd82dda7-cc8e-43d2-aa81-48277a63e551", 
    (4).to_bytes(1, byteorder='big')+ # The index (0 to 4)
    (2).to_bytes(1, byteorder='big')+ # The day (1 to 31)
    (7).to_bytes(1, byteorder='big')+ # The month (1 to 12)
    (65535).to_bytes(3, byteorder='big') + # The year (65532 to ignore it) 
    "Hello\nWorld".encode(), # The message to display: MUST BE 24 characters or bellow.
    response=True
)