I admit it: I'm a total geek. I love electronics, programming, 3D printing, 3D art, and vintage Apple hardware. I'm always juggling half a dozen projects. I also enjoy documenting it all: my successes, my failures, my experiences... and everything geeky along the way.

VFD Breakouts | Kevin Rye.net - Main

Kevin Rye

Geek Extraordinaire. Yeh, I said it.

VFD Breakouts

In order to start prototyping with my new VFDs, I need to make some breakout boards for them. Experience tells me that there's no easy way to jam them into a breadboard. I jumped into EAGLE and got started by making a library for them.

First up was the ILC1-1/8L…

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 3.17.48 PM

…followed by the ILT1-5 L.

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 3.17.38 PM

Easy enough. I then dropped the parts into a schematic and connected them to a header. I then routed the traces and framed out the PCB to make it as small as possible. I thought about making the PCB as large as the tube and incorporating some mounting holes in the top and the bottom, but that would have cost over $100. I decided to make the boards as small as possible. Even at this size, it'll cost $52 bucks to have six made.

I'll just have to 3D-print some kind of frame to mount them all; similar to what I did with my Large 7-Segment Clock and LCD Clock.

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 3.11.35 PM

For the ILT1-5 L, it was the opposite. There was no way to make the board any smaller due to the width of the 8-pin header.

Screen Shot 2017-06-04 at 3.11.21 PM

I then printed them out and made sure that everything lined up OK. They're perfect.

VFD breakouts_001

Here's the OSH Park renders. They should do the trick. I hope so, I dropped $70 bucks on having them made.


vfd OSH Breakouts

About two weeks later, I had my boards.

VFD breakouts_10

A perfect fit!

VFD breakouts_12

See this project from start to finish:
More VFDs!!!
VFD Breakouts
Large VFD Clock - Part I
VFD AC Filament Driver
Large VFD Clock - Part II
VFD AC Filament Driver V1.1
Large VFD Clock - Part III
Large VFD Clock - Part IV
Large VFD Clock - Part V