These old vacuum fluorescent Display (VFD) digital clocks were used in the Nissan 300ZX from the 90s.
VFD displays are interesting as they use old school CRT / valve technology. If you have a close look at them you can see lots of fine wires and a fine mesh behind the glass that are part of the mechanics of them.
None of the clocks were working so I was asked if I could repair them as like a lot of old electronics they’re no longer made and expensive to obtain on the second hand market.
Also those old bright green displays come under ‘cool vintage electronics’ in my wheelhouse so were worth a look.
There’s not much on the circuit boards so if the fault wasn’t the obsolete clock chip or the VFD display they were probably repairable.
The first one I looked at burst into life while looking around a certain area of the board with a scope so I resoldered that area of the board which fixed it.
The other two were basically the same, so a quick resolder of the parts in the problem area along with some other suspect soldering had them all working again.
I’ve uploaded a short video about repairing these old Nissan digital clocks to my @orangevalleysystems YouTube channel. Subscribe to the channel to be alerted to new uploads.