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"People present" counter for SpaceAPI, using nixie tubes.

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Nixie Counter

Description / Overview

PCB for a physical "people now present" counter that sends it data directly to the SpaceAPI.

Photo without enclosure

Photo with enclosure

Microcontroller

The microcontroller is an ESP32C3 based M5Stack STAMP-C3U board. We chose this because it's quite cheap, has everything built-in that we need and it can run firmware written in Rust.

Input Methods

To enter the number of people present, a 2-position momentary toggle switch is used that can be pushed upwards or downwards.

Display

The number of people present is then displayed on two IN-12B nixie tubes. Those tubes need 150-160 V for turning on, for this we use a NCH6100HV module. The tubes are controlled through two K155ID1 BCD-to-Decimal drivers. Those need 5V logic levels, so we use a level shifter between the drivers and the microcontroller.

Power Supply

Input power is supplied at 12V. The nixie power supply converts that to ~150V.

An LDOs convert the 12V to 5V, for both the nixie drivers and the ESP32 module.

Status LEDs

There's a yellow LED to indicate that the controller has power and runs the correct firmware, and a green LED to indicate whether the module is connected to the WiFi or not.

PCB

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Editing

This is a LibrePCB project!

License

TAPR Open Hardware License, see LICENSE.txt.

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"People present" counter for SpaceAPI, using nixie tubes.

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