2020 LED Kits - Polonium Cube & Nixiecron M4 Clock
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Assembly & Demo of two new LED kits.
AFFILIATED LINKS BELOW
Ebay store: ebay.to/30LDUIO
New 4-Digit Clock ebay.to/37vWpCc
Original 6-Digit Clock ebay.to/3e6cZLg
Polonium Cube & clock kits available from the Official Website (German): www.led-genial.de
(Any downloads and updates are also available from here).
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:48 Cube assembly
11:30 Cube demo
15:23 Intermission
16:17 Clock assembly
29:44 Clock demo
38:52 Summary
CORRECTION
Maximum time on the stopwatch is 39mins 59secs - the digits only go to 3 on the first position due to the other symbols (AM/PM/Alarm etc).
UPDATES:
A non-solder version of the six digit clock is now available
Alterations have been made to the attachment of the boards to aid easier removal
New solder has been used to reduce the likelyhood of LEDs popping off if the board is stressed.
A few people asked - so here’s the soLdering iron I use in this video (AFFILIATED LINK) amzn.to/2CI8Ijn
--------------SUBSCRIBE-----------------
ua-cam.com/users/Techmoan?...
------------Merchandise----------------
teespring.com/stores/techmoan...
------------SUPPORT--------------
This channel can be supported through Patreon
/ techmoan
******Patrons usually have early access to videos******
---------Outro Music----------
Over Time - Vibe Tracks • Over Time - Vibe Track...
-----Outro Sound Effect-----
ThatSFXGuy - • Six Million Dollar man...
-----AFFILIATED LINKS/ADVERTISING NOTICE------
All links are Affiliated where possible.
When you click on links to various merchants posted here and make a purchase, this can result in me earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network & Amazon.
I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON Sites (including, but not limited to Amazon US/UK/DE/ES/FR/NL/IT/CAN) - Наука та технологія
Keep 5 sides so you can have it on a coffee table and it can be seen by everyone, but keep the bottom blank for port access :)
They could even do all five sides plus put a border of LEDs around the bottom side and have access to all the ports. Plus they can maybe mount it up on a little stand that turns
@@tarstarkusz Might as well go with wireless charging too, to avoid easily broken ports.
@smartroadbiker I like your idea! Easy access to ports and/or controls, but my only concern is the bottom LEDs overheating. I would add a rotating base with wireless charging so it wouldn't have to be plugged in, or a stationary base with a charging plug.
I suggest a small 5v barrel jack that fits in the space between the leds
Wireless charging
I love how humble and slightly naive you are about being a technology influencer. You have an amazing channel and a diverse interest with an engaging humorous presentation. It's great that the effort you put out is being acknowledged in more than just subscribers, Cheers!
Deceptively naive.
Yes, I enjoy watching the videos even if off the bat it's for something I'd never actually buy-- the entertainment factor is certainly there and I've sent links to friends who I thought may be interested as well, so no doubt it's growing. And I started watching this channel when it was nothing but dashcam reviews, and I've never had any interest in actually buying a dashcam. But any friend who expressed interest in such, I'd direct them here... I can also say, MOAR PUPPETZ!
Key fob spy cams first I think?
i like this, he think i smol tech youtuber.
then show something and *puf* price rise 20%
..
"The guests will be here soon hon, do you have the clock set to party mode?"
😃
LOL
The clock I purchased from the same German company runs very fast, very fast. Looks nice. But not useable as a clock.
Isn't promising if the guests are looking at the clock during the party ... "Well that's it, time for bed, bye!"
I was actually so happy when I noticed that the video is 40 minutes
A nice chunky techmoan video is always great.
Same
@@konchatzi But so are the speed controls 🤣
I didnt even notice lol
Techmoan: Some people dont like my solder technique i am no expert
Also Techmoan; Solders four smd Leds and smd pins
I was going to say the same thing. If he's successfully soldering SMDs with no special equipment, not even any extra flux, he's plenty good enough with the iron.
A set of reverse tweezers (normally closed but open when pushed) is essential if you are a human soldering smds.
stiff upper lip, sir!
IDK, when I was learning how to solder, I order a clock kit, with >400 1x2mm SMD LEDs, a handful of SMD chips, and a bunch of other components. It took more than 10 hours to assemble, but this kit still works. Soldering SMDs is a fiddly process, but if you have a somewhat steady hand it's not hard.
@@laierr People tend to conflate the time and effort required with difficulty when it comes to soldering, for some reason. The majority of SMD work is just slow and tedious, not hard. Exception being some of the *really* small stuff that you need magnification to work on, as well as some things like drag soldering high pin count SMD chips. Those you definitely need a fair bit of muscle memory and knowledge to do.
"Because of me people in Germany have jobs!" Sir, that should be something YOU have got to be mighty proud of!
depends on the dexade
Wow!
Seriously your suggestion of using tape to remove the plastic from Perspex is one of the best things I’ve seen on UA-cam.
The waisted hours I’ve spent removing that stubborn stuff over the years, especially in tiny pieces, trying in vain to left a corner only to have it tear away when I start to lift it off.
Thanks. Love you videos!
A great tip from Techmoan. Only last weekend I struggled to get the protective films off a phone screen protector.
I’ll have to try that tip with double-sided adhesive tape.
I like to imagine that as techmoan goes through the years of videos, we get to watch him slowly get better at and more confident in his soldering skills
He already improved a lot over the years.
Honestly I didn't think he'd be able to solder the SMD components back on! He's almost reached bigclive master one handed soldering level!
2025 - Louis Ross-moan
@@TheducksOrg that guy's soldering technique is based powered by flux and resentment, mostly flux.
I was totally impressed by Techmoan's ability to handle the delicate soldering, especially getting the LEDs back on the board (without wrecking them like I would do,) and soldering the connector that pulled off. Most people would end up with a pile of parts trying to accomplish what he did. Even if you have a soldering station, it's still not easy to do this kind of work.
I wouldn't reduce it to 3 sides. the rear sides emit light which will be perceived as ambient back lighting which is important.
What you could do though is reduce it to 5 sides because the side the cube sits on isn't really visible and you dould hide an opening to switch batteries, a usb port, a switch etc down there. put some rubber / felt pads on as well and you may even put a mic hole there, although that is better on the top.
They can of course still offer a six-sided edition but that would need to feature some sort of stand to prop it up into a corner or a way to hang it somewhere.
I agree with 5 sides as of right now it'd become a very expensive paper weight after a day or so....and not a very good one at that.
6 sided and magnetically suspended in space while slowly doing a verying rotations on an ever changing axis of rotation like one of those gyro gimble things you strap into at the mall 😎
The first 38 minutes of the video: Yeah... I don't know about this one, looks too fiddly for me
38:34 - I'M SOLD, ORDERING IT NOW
Awesome to hear about them bringing more people on!
Techmoan - changing the world, one video at a time 😁
Also, more of these extra long vids please! 😁
Patreon?
My thoughts exactly, nice to see how something small can have far reaching effects.
I've noticed that some channels have even stopped using the "crap shot" camera angle. I don't know if they did this on their own, or as a result of people writing in with a link to the relevant *Techmoan* video..... ua-cam.com/video/JGKM9oi0mkA/v-deo.html
@@Christopher-N Must have missed that video, thanks for that!
Matt,
At the moment that i write this, if have seen just 1 minute of this footage, (and immediately paused it),
and let's get one thing straight:
You sir, are a YOU-TUBER.
That means that you, have some form of influence on the world, whether you like it or not!
The 8-bit-guy made me search for my old Commodore-64. And in stead of playing games, inspired me to program one!
Tom Scott's channel has made me love useless facts!
Sorted Food has got me into cooking! (Please do a kitchen gadget with them),
Adam Savage's Tested made me buy a miter saw, and i have made some improvements on my house!
Your influence has made me buy a Nixie-clock kit, solder it, and it works!
But the most beautiful thing of all:
I am about to make my self made cabinet, suited for a HiFi stereo system,
and YOU have inspired me to do this!!!
I love your video's, projects, style of filming and narrating, and i love your affinity with retro technology from the 80's!
OFF COURSE you have some form on influence on the world!
And fortunately, it is, (in my opinion), the good kind!
The kind where you make people feel like they can achieve something!
Keep up the work, and change the world!!!
R2k2, a dutch fan!
During these trying times especially here in the states I was really happy to hear this story this morning and it should make you proud that you had that effect!
Pixie clock: _allows mp3 chimes_
Techmoan: "Ah yes, it's Cuban Baion o'clock"
A nice tune wake up to :)
i have it as my ring tone lol 😆
The fact that the clock has more than one of those plastic thingies in each row makes it look even cooler when the lights are on and it gives it a vague neon/comet-tail effect, is awesome :)
Always love it when Mat does something 'Nixie' influenced or related. The new 4 digit clock is another winner and one I would consider ordering. Thanks for this, Mat, and congrats on helping a company to be able to provide more jobs! I think that's the best part of this whole story.
I so appreciate positive tales these days. We've a fair amount of negative stuff currently.
Q: What feature should we put in a clock?
A: Ja
A: "Natürlich, Dummkopf!"
Nice username, btw.
Gans Hans
Germanish
Many of these are just the weird features of the common Chinese clock chips.
You, kind sir, make excellent videos with enjoyable content. I really enjoy binge watching your work. Thanks for being humble and genuine.
You are amazing, I have followed this channel from such a long time and saw this grow a lot, it still amazes me to see this level of content quality and research that goes into your videos.
7:26 I think that's just a bit left over from it being popped out of the backing plate. Could probably clip it off with a pair of cutters.
The nixie team are pretty cool, they were at Berlin Maker Faire a couple of years back and had a bunch of their stuff on display. Such cool products!
Have to say one of the best presenters on You Tube, real shock your not on the telly somewhere doing this, and the content is all the stuff I never knew I wanted to know anything about , top channel matey
I have been watching your channel forever. I have truly truly enjoyed the content you've made. Just subscribed to your patreon. Keep up the phenomenal work!
13:35 - Or 5 panels - loose the bottom one or make it optional
Would have been my idea too. Integrated charging port, maybe a kind of dock, to power is continuously. Easy access to the SD and battery... 👌
Yeah 5 would be ideal with bottom reserved for USB port and Card slot 👍
That was my thought, too. That and inductive charging as an upgrade. ;)
@Leia Winston the cube with one side missing would be much sturdier, you wouldn't have to be able to take one side off. You know, here in GER, we like to over-engineer things.
Or maybe make a couple of the screw post 'the charge points' and Add a charging / display cradle .... with one corner pointing down! 😁
It would be also interesting to include a stand, where you can ... well, stand ... it on a corner, so more sides are visible and if the stand was acrylic as well, it would be a nice gravity-defying effect. Also, I think the back sides should be lit as well, because when you place it in a bookshelf, it will do an effect to the wall and with some programming, also serve as a back light. But that would require 1) permanent power supply, 2) possibility to control the lights online and then connecting it to some zigbee host. So many possibilities, but not with this implementation.
Easy, Rubiks cube have stands like that, I have 2 for my original 3x3 and 4x4 cubes. You can just repurpose them :)
Surely you want a magnetic levitation mount, just like the ones used for spinning globes. If you can power it inductively from the base, even better.
@@hjalfi I built one of those once. Then it escaped and started abducting livestock.
@@Syncopator Haven't we all.
Excellent video as always! I’m glad your videos support small businesses. Without your videos I wouldn’t have known of these awesome little projects!
What a great treat for a Saturday morning! Love these long videos!
the cube should have 5 led panels and access to charging and the sd card on the bottom.
That was my thought as well.
@@01chippe Same thought here. That bottom panel is kind of wasted space.
Maybe add a small strip of leds around the bottom for that underglow efect.
What if you want to hang it by a string from a corner? :D
Great video! I would put the "flippin heck" chime! :D
Holy moly, I just noticed you are a mere 6 K subscribers from a million - and you'll reach that in no time. Congratulations in advance. I've been watching on and off for years, probably since you created some of your first dashcam reviews and it's been great seeing your sub count rise to these levels. Your story about the German company was great to hear too by the way - I guess this is the positive side of the "Teachmoan Effect"
Quite a humble gentleman... The world needs more people like you!
I think the bottom panel should be sacrificed for ports. The other sides can be rotated in, but not the bottom one.
A corner stand would allow all sides to be seen (and when on a rotating stand, where do you get one of those?). Plus, that corner could be used for the USB port by sacrificing a couple of the corner LEDs if necessary.
@@Syncopator You can get them on Amazon, look for motorised lazy Susans or rotating display stands.
wait, what? You've never heard of the Techmoan effect? sometimes when you feature something old, there is a rush to ebay and prices skyrocket...
if only you could find out what he is going to present the next week..might be a money making scheme there :)
"Patrons usually have early access to videos"
yup, gotta spend money to make money
@@MickeyMousePark Patreon insider trading is gonna be the next big scheme!
*anger at Phil's Computer Lab intensifies*
Matt that opening sequence was so lovely to hear about. ...well done you.
You sir are extremely talented. I am not sure if you realize how well you narrate and edit your videos.
Cordless (inductive) charging would be nice. To see the backside: put it in front of a mirror.
Or just four little pads on the outside, wouldn't be able to make them out with the LEDs running.
"I'm glad I managed to get it together in the end ..." Half your luck! I am older than you, and STILL cannot see when I may be able to get it all together...
OTOH, I would love the M4 clock, but I doubt that I could put that together successfully, given all the glitches you encountered. I admire your smarts and perserverance!
3 days ago? I knew I've seen it
@@lukmly013 on Patreon?
@@user-wq3hc4ze3n No, here, on UA-cam
lukmly013 well the early comments were from people that got the video first on patreon.
@@AcornElectron But I got notification on it a few days ago without patreon
Now I know why I watch your videos. This duct tape trick is so simple that I never had the idea myself even though I'm removing excess glue from leather this way. Thanks for that and for your always positive attitude.
I enjoy your assembly videos, as you are fair and don't pull any punches
Aluminium Top Knob: Yorkshire wrestler from the 1970s
Inserting the Acrylic Light Pipe: Cult 60s Acid Folk album
It not being an actual cube would annoy me to no end, I'd always know
Put it in a corner
Dayzik “Nobody puts baby in a corner.”
I kept thinking it ought to have dice pips on it, but then people would want to roll it, and it might not quite be up to it...
Not to mention there might be more than one person...
I use acrylic in my projects and the duck tape tip for removing the protective film is brilliant. The wasted time I have spent trying to get a corner started is just ridiculous. This is a game changer! Thanks.
I love to start my day with a 40 minute Techmoan video.
The cube reminds me of the live wallpaper that came by default on old Nexus phones
The chapters were helpful, although I watched the whole thing anyway.
I guess chapters are only available on desktop mode, couldn’t find them watching on the iPhone app..
@@alankerrigan works on android. guess it hasn't been updated on iOS yet
Alan Kerrigan They should be in the video description. They worked for me in iOS
Sunday's were made for Techmoan videos 👍😉
Nothing like sticking the tele on with your Sunday lunch and watching Sir Techmoan 😊😍
I'm a straight man, but I think I love you man. You just do what you do, and it makes the world better. Marvelous, and a rare thing for youtubers.
I'm surprised to see how good his rework soldering skills were :)
I'm positive you have the seconds blinker in the middle of the NixieCron on backwards.
I did notice when it was dimmed, you could see there were two distinct LEDs making a "colon". Given that, I think the angle is perhaps designed to make that work-- not sure which way it should be oriented though. What keeps the digits in place? Are they just pressed in? Are you supposed to glue them?
Bought the 6-digit clock after previous video. It's been brilliant!
Had a good chuckle when the clock started playing Cuba Baion. Great video as always!
I thought you'd printed out the UA-cam instructions for a moment!
That was my thought as well at first LOL.
Techmoan would be the person to do so
Yeah I was like "that sheet probably used a lot of toner...".
needs wireless charger build in
Yeah if you want to keep the six sided light that'd be a must....though 5 sides with one side with a charging port would be fine also.
Meh, there is room for a small DC barrel jack between the leds. There are already screw holes. Maybe one of these could be replaced with a barrel plug.
or at least pogo pins and a cradle
What does
Techmoan kit videos amongst my fav Techmoan videos, great stuff!!
That story about the clock was wonderful.
When it speaks the time, reminds me of a numbers station
I'm German and this sounds awful. Like a 2000s text to speech engine. You can clearly hear that the numbers are individual sounds played one after another. With a more professional speaker and tighter timing, it could sound decent.
@@drstefankrank it sounds to me a bit as if they captured the audio from an actual, though pretty modern and decent TTS engine, i think there are a couple tells when it's speaking actual words.
The way you can make the digits sound natural is by capturing well-processed and well-partitioned snippets at start, middle and end of the breath, basically by forming sentences with digits in all these combinations and cutting them out. It's not an easy task.
But then you also need gapless playback, and... i think this is a DFPlayer module, i don't know if it can accomplish that smoothly. In general i don't think these are amazingly engineered product, they have 'hobbyist' written all over them. I mean STM32F103 playing WAV files gaplessly from SD-Card wouldn't actually be that hard to accomplish.
Can you imagine a time when RGB leds will be seen as beloved nostalgia🙂
Nah, we'll revert to stone age man before that happens. In about 10 years. At which point we'll destroy the ones that still work like they're signs of the devil.
@@Syncopator My first reaction to your comment was to laugh.
Then I remembered the flat earthers, mud flood people, covid conspirators, mask madmen and all the Karens and Chads out there and then got really sad.... then scared.
That cube was amazing, it sent me into a trance straight away
Congrats on your first surface-mount soldering job!
"The flashing has stopped" *proceeds to start flashing again* :D
Oh no! You're now an "influencer" ;)
Best way to display the cube would be a mount in one corner, with the alternate corner at the top. A cable could run inside the mount to a base where you could have the USB socket.
Never get tired of Techmoan!
I really like the cube. I think the best option would be to remove the usb plug, surface wire a usb cable to the pads, tie a knot in it and take the corner off three of the boards so it can be hing and powered by the cable. With a mic too it would be a great disco light.
Agreed, a 3 sided one makes more sense. It would be cheaper and the battery would last longer powering half the number of LEDs. Even a 5 sided version makes more sense since it has to sit on a shelf.
As for the clock, you could definitely do a Techmoan version by replacing each file with your own voice files. You could offer the download for viewers.
The cube has me wondering if you could build an addon board that had wireless charging and Bluetooth, so you'd never have to open it up.
Not if it's on your desk in an open office.... plus 3 sides would mess with my completist side!
powersafe. clock should turn off :) timer, detector
5 sides would be better. You could then look at from any angle. The blank side on the bottom, which can't be seen anyway, could contain the Charging port, micro sd slot and on off switch.
Maybe they were going for an object which you could handle rather than just place it down.
@@gamesmithoz I think so as well, but if you handle it, you get dirt and fingerprints all over the LEDs. If it had something to cover the LEDs, thin acrylic maybe, it would further improve this product. And a blank side of course. You could even put a display and a few buttons there to program it directly.
That's was a nice outcome to your first review so hopefully they'll have as much success from this one despite your teething problems. I did cringe a bit when I saw you with a knife trying to cut the boards out, working in electronics I was shouting out in my mind nooo that's not how you do it they are designed to snap out easily. Surface mount is not that bad to work with once your use to it. I'd say the wrong screws were put in with the clock maybe they will sort that after some feedback. I'm not sure about your idea for the cube, just having one blank face would be a better option though a small charging jack could be put in a slightly cut off corner to keep the full effect for say putting on a glass shelf.
I’ll never buy either product, but I watched the entire video from start to finish. I love the honest opinions and production quality of videos, I swear you could make a video about dust interesting.
Watching Techmoan build something is legit the most peaceful thing ever to watch
Someone wealthy needs to dress a Christmas tree with dozens of those cubes 😎
@36:47 "If you go to the website and download the appropriate files and put them on the SD card..." had me hoping for a cuckoo clock mode.
I think the rough edges of assembling the cube are a useful teaching aid for someone learning to do general troubleshooting.
That's so amazing. Your video helped a company out.
Had to watch this, had no idea what the title meant!
0:24 "for people in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland." - fixed that for you. 💗
well not all of switzerland speaks german, they speak italian and french too.
@@NexXxus86 Also Rumantsch, but that's all beside my point.
this video sent me on a rabbit hole down ebay that ended up in me spending 3 hours browsing industrial printers that are over 12 thousand minimum. wow. i am genuinely amazed at some of these printers. lol.
Top bloke, always been the most genuine person here on UA-cam and has never changed since the early days. Every time I go to Manchester shopping I look out for Techmoan lol.
What if they remove the LEDs from the bottom and replace it with a spot for the SD card and an inductive charging coil?
Just removed the LED panel from the base of the cube, add 4 spacers to raise it slightly and then they could add the usb port, on/off switch etc all into the base.
997K! Congrats dude, I hope you hit the 1 Milion mark this week :D
That is the best looking disco cube ever!!!
For charging the battery, a small DC barrel connector between the LED's might work great instead of micro usb
They should invent a cube where you can see all the 6 sides at once. A tesseract!
Another brilliant and helpful video. I have just ordered the clock :)
A timely and illuminating post ~ many thanks.
one more row and column and it could simulate solving a Rubik's cube
That needs a dice animation.
Great idea!
Maybe a random number generator for "rolling the dice"too. 😁
That way they'd sell two! 😁
@@Bob3519 ya, but for that theyll have to make it more robust.
@@Bob3519 or, add a motion sensor and an animation plus a random number generator within a certain limit can allow user to shake the dice and gently put it on the table to get a number.
You may not want to encourage people to roll it, but if it had a microphone with a "clap" sensor, you could have it scramble the sides with dice pips and simulate a random roll. Then imagine having 5 of them and playing Yachtzee with a single clap... Most. Expensive. Dice. Ever.
And a Rubik's Cube animation.
What a wonderful project :D Looks great
Great video Mat. You are too humble for a guy who has almost a million subscribers!
It should have a mode where it just flashes "12:00". 😁
Hahaha yes
the LED cube reminds me of deadmau5's "cube" DJ booth that he uses at his shows.
Thank you for showing us these, Techmoan.
The clocks are nifty but will collect dust. Some nice acrylic enclosures are needed.
That looks really challenging. This reminds me of some of those toy electrical kits combined with 3-D puzzles.
The new clock has additional "American" settings.
I haven't updated the software on the original in a while. I adjusted a program setting to deal with the time drift. It still drifts but much slower. I assume it's from a power frequency difference & it's counting based off 50hz instead of 60hz. I skipped around this video. Was this potential issue mentioned?
@@KLondike5I don't think so
jesus i actually though you got a cube of polonium
I prefer sugar in my tea
All those little fiddly issues you had are what I used to deal with on a daily basis. I used to work on Postwave/SMT Touchup. All day of fixing the things you did. The board looks like it wasn't heated up enough and it was a lot of cold solder. My favorite was working on fine pitch IC's and and running mod wires to the legs (probably cause it was easy to me and no one else could really do it). All those parts are hand workable if you have some experience. To be honest I've been doing it for 18 years. Now I make the directions on how to solder boards.
Thanks again. I have built more than a few things and one of these should be a lot of fun.
Oh, god, I hate that; text instruction and image instructions labeled differently; they need to fix that.
“How do we market our Tesseract lamp without infringing on Marvel’s copyright?”
“Have you ever heard of polonium?”
I was actually really excited to see something that could pass for the Tesseract, but at this price I could buy a NanoLeaf kit, which is a much more impressive light installation
@@philipcorner574 how are they impressive? They are super overused
Cool! Creating jobs. Nice way to hold everything together soldering.
Matt's use of the perspex as a stand was much more imaginative than the intended use. It actually improved the cube's display. Now lets see the cube on the perspex on the rotating base.