Metro: Last Light watch?

[DrNoobMD]

Any ideas for the components inside the watch itself? I'm not particularly knowledgeable about electronics in general (most I've done is fiddled with a ammo counter for my Nerf pulse rifle), so I'm not sure if whats used in the in watch is real world tech, or if not (I'm assuming not) what the best way to replicate it would be. Any thoughts/suggestions would be welcome, really not sure what to do here aside from a display which isn't a great way to replicate what it actually looks like.

Some reference pics:

 

[DeeJay Mrw]

I think with just a few leds you could do it. I think you'd have to settle on one set of numbers, as I can't think of a way you'd be able to change them. Top part is a clear plastic tube with a blue LED shining down it. Make the numbers themselves out of a clear material and have LEDs under them. leave a crack open so those LEDs can also illuminate the bottom part of the watch. Its a lot of small detail though. Good luck

 

[Atlas]

Hi,

From the shape of the numbers it's easy to deduce that the number displays are nixie tubes- and sadly, nixie tubes that small were never produced. (However, nixie wristwatches have been built, but tehy are gargantuan, and only have two tubes. Old Nixie Watch by Cathode Corner Wozniak rocks one also) So, a practical real world version from the watch would be impossible, but IMHO, a version built with 7-segm LED displays would be equally awesome. The power supply would prove a problem though, as wristwatch cases tend to be on the small side, and LEDs drain the smallest batteries quickly compared to LCD displays.

The blue light tube appears to be one of these http://www.trdpartsonline.com/images/IEC FUSE 193,195 SERIES.jpg converted into a light, doable with LEDs and a small glass or plastic tube (a clear drinking straw would do the trick). The two black cylinders with metal-colored tips are just your everyday condensators (like this one: http://static1.tme.eu/katalog_pics/5/1/3/5134743d4610da715702d3eff8942920/gt470_25.jpg).

If I were you, the first step would be finding the smalles PCB watch kit you can find, and buil a big enough case for it in the likeness of the one in Last Light. The hardest part that I can think of is figuring the display and power consumption, but they are both absolutely solvable problems.

Can't wait to see what you come up with =)

_A

 

[DrNoobMD]

Thanks for the replies guys, I hadn't considered the 7 segment LED solution. Did a bit of digging around, and it seems like the easiest solution would be something like this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11178 . From there, just need to find the most accurate housing I can, run a blue LED through a lightly sanded clear straw, and wedge two of those condensators in it somehow. Having searched about an hour tonight, I have a feeling that the most difficult part of this is going to be finding a reasonably accurate housing that's large enough to hold the board/LED's.

Edit: Also found this,



which looks nearly identical to the in game watch, but it's also $495 so quite a bit more than I'm wanting to spend on this. Thought I'd drop it here for future reference in case anyone with a similar goal finds this and wants total accuracy at whatever cost.

 

[Copper9]

Just troll Ebay for "tube calculators".

Vintage Singer Friden EC 1117 Nixie Tube Calculator Works Great w Original Cord | eBay

Working vintage nixie tube calculator $75 bucks. (you can probably find a non-working one for a lot cheaper)

 

[Copper9]

Or, you could grab a used iPod Nano and switch it to the "Nixie Tube Watch Face" setting and then build the Metro watch around that...

 

[Copper9]

1" inch blue neon tube.
Twin Neon Light Scion TC XD XA Kia Toyota Honda BMW LED | eBay

 

[BluePillow]

wow, I really liked the idea of the iPod I hope you acomplish this. I'd love to see a replicated watch. love the game

 

[Harrison4257]

You see those two black dots in the center of picture two? Those are burned out LED's.
You can further see them by going to this link and tracking to around 14:25, it may be difficult to see.
Metro: Last Light Angry Review - YouTube

"4 DIGIT TINY IN-17 NIXIE TUBE CLOCK" is the perfect prop for this and, if you don't mind paying near 100 dollars, it's a bargain. Never the less, the height is something to be considered at 56mm, roughly 2.2 inches.

This setup burns through a 9v fairly quickly.

You cann see these two on my deviantart page
Metro Last Light - Light Tube for Watch by ~Mutsuhido on deviantART
Metro-Last-Light-Light-Tube-for-Watch
Metro Last Light - 4 x Nixie Tube kit (TM) by ~Mutsuhido on deviantART
Metro Last Light - Electronics

 

[holtt]

Here's a construction article about building a NIXIE watch using the same tubes illustrated above...

Tiny Nixie Clock

As pointed out above, the problem with the real tubes is they are tall - to the point of you having an oddly fat watch. You could probably work down their height a bit by removing the bases and creating a custom one, but still it's going to be an issue as is battery life.

As much as I'd like the real nixie tubes, I'd also be tempted by the idea of fake nixies ala the iPod idea. Another approach would be to embed a small LCD screen (liek https://www.sparkfun.com/products/569) into the watch, and drive it with an Arduino. Much lower power, plus the ability to drive more interesting display actions. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could put a gyro chip in it, and render a parallax effect for a depth feeling for the nixies on the LCD - like the iOS 7 effect if you've seen it.

 

[holtt]

Check this little screen out. I bet you could make a nice little watch using it.

OLED Breakout Board - 16-bit Color 0.96 w/microSD holder ID: 684 - $29.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

It has a micro SD card on the back, and you can set it up to load images from the uSD card and display them. One could pre-generate a set of 1440 nixie style image files (each hour of each minute) and just load them directly for display based on the current time.

 

[nixiebunny]

Hi. I am the guy who makes those Cathode Corner Nixie watches. I just got a bunch of the tiny B-4998 Nixie tubes, the only tube that would make sense to build this watch. I'm already working on a circuit board design for such a thing. This is the PC board artwork as it looks in the CAD program. It's highly preliminary, so don't bother complaining that things don't line up right or whatever. It's currently 2.10" diameter. 2.00" is a very tight fit.

I assume that a proper prop watch would need some pins to attach LEDs to illuminate the little blue tube above the Nixies. It also may want a third button on the lower left corner.

Does this look like an interesting project?

 

[RadFallout100]

Would these tubes be any better suited for the job? They aren't the right shape, but they look smaller.
http://tubehobby.com/show_det.php?det=33