Nixie Tube Music Visualizer

Step 7 Design: Power

The majority of the visualizer runs off of a 12V DC power supply. The audio in, amplification and filter stages need 6V power (1/2 the supply). The 6V is created by a voltage divider of two 100K ohm resistors. This setup cannot actually source any real amount of current, so it is connected to to non-inverting input of an op-amp (TL3472), with its output connected to its inverting input. The output of the op-amp centers perfectly at 1/2 the supply voltage, and it can source current.

The display stage needs 125V to power the nixie tubes. Creating high voltages with a boost converter requires a very precise layout of the traces, so I purchased a prebuilt one from allspectrum.com