2015

“The Tangerine Dream” is a well intentioned fun name for the direct drive Nocrotec Blue Dream Nixie clock that I have modified with orange LED's vs. the supplied blue color. I felt amber/orange LED’s complimented the IN-18 Nixie tube better than the supplied blue color, so I changed them.  Also, I don't much care for NE-2's mounted upright in test tubes and used as colon separators.  So, I hand built my own oval shaped towers out of aluminum bar and inserted 6 x15 NE-2's in them horizontally, the way I think they look best. These towers started out as 1/2” X 3/4” 6061 aluminum bar stock, that were hand shaped on a 12” disk sander and finished with several different grit hand-sanding blocks. 

This clock is offered as a ‘kit’ only, but it does not allow the builder to do anything except the simple through hole stuff. I’m sure this is done to reduce potential issues with the SMD stuff, but one has to ask,  why bother? Why not just offer it assembled only? Menu structure used with this clock is the same as all the other Nocrotec clocks with additions for GPS and LED floor lighting. The biggest difference between this and all the Nocrotec offerings is that it is the first to incorporate GPS discipline and floor lighting. Sadly, it still does not have DST!

I bought this clock because I wanted to experiment with a Direct Drive IN-18 clock that had a nice digit crossfade feature (it is beautiful) and was GPS disciplined.