The story of John Miktuk's Garage.

OLDVAN GARAGE
Perforated with
LEDs.
 

THE BEAUTIFUL RESULT...

Read on for the story behind this strange garage!

INDEX PAGE

 1)    Name:  First wave of the attack.
                137 holes in the side of the garage!

 2)    Time: Second wave of the attack.
                125 MORE holes in the side of the garage!

 3)    Electronics of a LED Garage.

 4)    GPS Accuracy for the project.

 5)    Building the Perfect Beast.

 6)    Programming the 16F877.

 7)    Up & Running!

 8)    Failure #1 (a brief one).

 9)    Battery Backup 
            [Coming when I get the time.]

10)    Humorous Anecdotes
                (People say the darndest things)

11)    More Pictures.
                  Blizzards, Anniversaries, etc.

12)    Changing Colors.
                  Time for a makeover.

13)    WAY COOL:  NIXIE TUBE GPS Clock KITS!
                Thanks to an engineering partnership with Jeff Thomas,
            THE Nixie Tube Clock and Nixie Tube Wrist Watch Guy,
            You can now build your very own GPS synchronized  NixiSAT or GPSII Nixie Clock!
            The Nixie Tube Clocks are available either completed with warranty or in kit form.
 

Comments are welcome, email
email@oldvan.com

OLDVAN MAIN PAGE

Summary for the benefit of search engines: 
Corrugated Galvanized steel garage and a few hundred surplus Red and Orange LEDs,
a back ache worth of drilling holes, and the magic of a Microchip PIC 16F877 interpreting NMEA sentences
from a Garmin GPS unit combine to produce an eye-catching display:  The time perfectly accurately displayed
for all to see.  Through the miracle of the Internet, I've now also got Nixie Tube Clocks with GPS precision,
it's wonderful to combine 1970s Vacuum Tube Technology with a microcontroller and $GPRMC sentences
to produce a chronometer that is both accurate and stunning to view.  Now I'm doing custom PIC Programming
for hire at a reasonable price and loving it.  Microchip's line includes the 16F84, it's predecessor the 16C84,
the 16F877 which I used for this clock, the 16F876 which is a smaller version of the 877, and a cool
replacement for the 16F84, the 16F628.  All are in circuit programmable thanks to Flash Memory.

December 2003:  Still going strong, no problems.
April, 2006.   Still going strong.  Four years of reliable service.
March 2104, still working as planned.