Nixie Pipe — A Modern Alternative to Nixie Tubes

Years ago, if you wanted to display numerical data electronically, one method was using Nixie tubes. These gas-filled tubes displayed the required number on a glowing piece of metal, and apparently looked quite beautiful. Unfortunately, they’re no longer in production, so getting your hands on one is rare, and besides that, they require relatively high voltages to make work.

To fill this gap, John Whittington created what he calls ‘Nixie Pipe,’ which works in a similar manner, but instead of pieces of metal, lights up layers of acrylic with programmable WS2812sBs. This means that his displays can be run at lower voltages, and show the color of your choosing.

Nixie Pipes are modular and can be chained together. They feature ATtmega328P chip in the master unit, allowing it to drive slave units with just LEDs. He also came up with an Arduino library for it, so in addition to lots of built-in functionality, you can program them as needed.

You can read more about Whittington’s interpretation of a modern-day Nixie tube here, and see a demo of it below!