I always enjoyed looking at Nixie tube clocks, so much so that a year or so ago I bought a Nixie tube clock kit from PVE Electronics called a FunKlock. In the kit you get all the PCBs, tubes and components to build a functional Nixie tube clock minus the case unless of course you purchase one of those as well. I had initially built the clock and put it into a very basic case I found on Thingiverse I printed using wood PLA and then stained it with two different colors of stain. In all honesty, it was just ok, eventually I just got tired of the way it looked and ended up putting it into a drawer in hopes of coming up with a better case for it in the future. Like all projects you put into the drawer, I completely forgot about it for a little over a year until I discovered a vintage TV inspired case on Printables. I ended up printing it in a few of my favorite colors in hopes to emulate a vintage look, I used PrintBed Peanut Butter and Paramount Stealth Grey.

Initially I had wired in a couple of push buttons to handle the adjusting and setting of the clock. In this new model, the designer added encoders into the ADJ and SET knobs on the front of the TV and used those to set and adjust the clock. Luckily for me, I found a handful of encoders in my project box that fit into the knobs with some light sanding. The designer also has a place in the back of the model to mount the power plug but since I had originally built this model for a different case, I was not going to desolder the power jack from the PCB, so I made a quick remix of the back panel that had a hole in it, so I can plug my power cord directly into the back of the unit. One quick note, I believe this model is clearly designed to be used during the initial build of the FunKlock so if you are converting from a different case to this, take a look at my remixed back panel, so you do not need to desolder the power jack from the PCB.

Overall, this is a really nice model, everything fits in it really well, and it looks nice on a desk. I opted to not add the piece that would hold the rabbit ears as that I didn’t care for the overall look of it with the dowels in it. If you are in the market for a Nixie tube clock kit, I would highly recommend the FunKlock kit as it was an enjoyable build, I also think the Vintage TV case is also well-designed and looks good on a desk.