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This was not an easy project to finish. Anything that could go wrong, it did, due to a rare combination of ambiguous hardware kit design (that's what started it all), and bad luck (software bugs in Arduino IDE 1.0 nevertheless). In the end, I learned a few things, which made me a better person :) :) :) Please don't take this as a rant, nor as a (negative) review. As usual, the main purpose of the post is to document the experience and eventually help others troubleshoot similar problems they may have with the Arduinix shield kit . The first issue I had was not getting the high voltage (180V) required by the Nixie tubes. For some reason, the provided schematic and assembly instructions are ambiguous on the exact value of the C3. This made me look at other HV power supplies, with the conclusions captured in this post . Anyone taking a closer look at the Arduinix HV schematic will notice at least 3 differences compared to others using the same 555-based design: - the very importan

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Updated June 2, 2017 - added VFD power supply with automatic dimming (#4 in the list below), contributed by Ken This is a superficial review of the few schematics I encountered while building Nixie clocks, VFD clocks and Geiger counters (no tube amplifier just yet). Although the schematics seemed basic at a glance, they usually ended up being a challenge (that is, they rarely worked right away) for me. That's another reason I am trying to cover them here, so I can use this post as consolidated reference any time I need it. Tubes require high voltage to work. Some ( Vacuum Fluorescent Display ) need 40V, others ( Nixie ) 180-200V, and some others ( Geiger ) even higher, 400-1000V. The high voltages are generated these days by switching-mode power supplies. Essentially, there is only a handful of popular solutions, and each DIY tube kit picks one of these, based on size, power requirements, cost. In principle, a switching mode power supply, also known as "boost converter",