For the final battery backup solution, I'm interrupting the 5v feed from the voltage regulator to the clock pcu portion of the board, and sending that 5v out to the red wire coming into the Adafruit powerboost. I am using this board to supply 5v to the clock chip as it can charge a li-Ion battery and use that as the backup. Once main power is lost it immediately switches to battery power to keep the clock chip ticking.

The grey wire is ground out to the main board, the orange wire is battery power to the clock chip, the two diodes allow power to pass through the board but not back the wrong way, and the two black wires go to the right-hand switch middle position so that the battery backup can be switched off when the clock is initially started up so the clock can still sense the 60hz signal from wall power. Once the clock senses the 60hz, battery backup can be switched on and continue clock operation.

The above 3d model will be the housing that holds the battery and the board, with a slot to allow the wires to pass through. The back of the housing will be flush with the rear control panel, and the tabs on the bottom will secure under and behind the clock circuit board.

Here shown assembled, needing a last piece of heat shrink tubing on the orange 5v feed to insulate it. I continue to love having a 3d printer on hand for things like this.

Next up, I need to prep the top switches for installation, and that means cutting the leads, and pre-soldering the leftover leads for wires. Lead 1 is negative for the LED, tab 2 is positive for the LED. NO(normally open) and C (common) are for the switch connections.

Cutting the wires to the proper length and pre-tinning them, and having crimped housings keeps things tidy.

The reason these switches need to be prepped this way is to allow everything to fit once it's installed. These brass LED lit switches are longer than my original design so they barely fit, even with the shortened leads.

After a colleague sent me a large batch of tubes, I've decided to go with these matched 1970 Z560M tubes, which come with a red filter coating. I have to remove the coating with hot water so the backlight color isn't lost. They also vary slightly in diameter, so I need to find six matched tubes that fit inside the brass bezels along with teh paper inserts. The paper inserts are there to both cushion the glass against the brass and to bounce the light from the LEDs forward without the light being colored by the yellowish brass.

I never tire of seeing fifty plus year-old electronic devices come to life. These tubes are lovely!

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