[time-nuts] Re: Crazy Clock

[John Franke]

A dozen years ago, I used the 1pps signal from a Jupiter GPS receiver to drive a pair of NIXIE tubes. The sixty second overflow from the NIXIE tubes advances the hands of the Standard Electric Time wall clock. I know it is not exactly you are reaching for, but it is still running, and interesting to me to see an early 1900's clock movement being driven by a 1950's NIXIE seconds counter and a 2000's GPS receiver.

John WA4WDL.


> On December 15, 2022 at 10:00 AM Adrian Godwin via time-nuts <time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> An old synchronome slave clock also makes a nice display for something like
> this. Some types require a bipolar pulse, others a single current pulse. I
> once had a small circuit that charged a capacitor from an RS232 output and
> discharged it into the clock when a single character was output. The tick
> was then generated by a shellscript on the Unix host. This was when
> peripheral outputs were only proper RS232 - there wasn't a convenient power
> source like USB without a separate brick. But a USB synchronome driver
> would be a very easy project.
> 
> A problem is power failures after which the time has changed but the hands
> haven't. Ideally, I think you want to track the hands position in a
> nonvolatile memory and aim to minimise the distance between the hands and
> the actual time. In the system described above, the rate you can generate
> pulses is limited by the capacitor charge time and in any case an hour's
> worth of synchronome pulses in the spring would be horribly noisy. A Favag
> clock as used by broadcast studios would be a better choice.
> 
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 2:51 PM Jean-Louis Oneto via time-nuts <
> time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Bob,I had a similar project of driving the 24-hour mechanical Patek
> > clock of an old HP5061 from the 1-PPS of a Raspberry Pi with a GPS
> > module. There was several problems :1) that mechanical clock requires
> > bipolar pulses (+/-12 V if I remember correctly) which were made by RTL or
> > DTL logic in the 5061.2) there is no way to know the hands position, so
> > setting up the time would be difficult. I have put this project on standby
> > for a while, but that could be a good opportunity to revisit it. Have a
> > great day, Jean-Louis OnetoEnvoyé de mon mobile LG------ Message
> > d'origine------De: Bob Camp via time-nuts Date: jeu. 15 déc. 2022 06:10À:
> > Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement;Cc: Bob Camp;Objet
> > :[time-nuts] Crazy ClockHi
> >
> > I realize that this is a bit of an odd project, but this is Time Nuts …..
> >
> > I want a analog wall clock that reads out GPS time. As far as I can tell,
> > nobody
> > is crazy enough to make one and sell it in the open market. If indeed
> > there is
> > one out there, that
> >  would be great. This does not have to be a project.
> >
> > If it is a project, I’m lazy, I don’t want to set the thing and then count
> > on it never
> > missing a beat. I want a movement that has some form of feedback. The
> > WWVB clocks have a movement like this. I could tear one apart and try to
> > reverse engineer the guts. That sounds like. a project inside a project.
> >
> > Does anybody sell feedback movements like this in the hobby market? If so
> > has
> > anybody used one and can vouch for it working for more than a few months?
> >
> > Indeed, doing it with a display of some sort would be easier in some
> > respects.
> > For now at least, I’m looking for a mechanical gizmo with hands that move.
> > If it reads out 12 hour time that’s ok. 24 hour time would be super cool,
> > but
> > it’s not vital.
> >
> > Anybody know of a source?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Bob
> >
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