[time-nuts] CW12-TIM

Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at yahoo.com
Sat Mar 24 12:25:26 UTC 2012


Tom Knox:
"Has anyone played with the CW12-TIM? I am hoping it is a plug and play 
replacement for the M12+ in my Commsync II with better performance." 

+++++++++++++
 I have no idea if it will work but from my experience with trying to upgrade 
my Odetics 365 to a 565, there is a chance you might run into a problem. 
My 365 was built around 1998 and the 565 about 2005 but the main boards 
looked identical with the exception of the revision on a 27c010 EPROM. I 
put just the receiver board from the 565 into the 365 and it would not work. 
By putting both the 565 receiver board and the 565 EPROM into the 365 
it worked and acted just like the original 565. 

 It appeared that the EPROM contained some information or code that only 
let it talk to certain receiver boards. Robert Atkinson posted he had worked 
for Odetics when the change was made and that both receiver and firmware 
changes were made. My 565 used a M12+ on a Synergy Systems adapter 
board to make it look like a UT+ board so I then substituted a Motorola UT+ 
GPS receiver into the receiver in place of the M12+ and its adapter board 
and it did work and the display reported it correctly. 

 Looking at the spec sheet I'd say the CW12-TIM would be worth a try as it isn't 
that expensive and the specs look really good. Both receivers seem to speak 
the same language where the original receiver in my 365 was an old Magellan 
which apparently was way different than the M12+/UT+ that worked with the new 
firmware. The fact that the CW12-TIM can look like the M12+ makes me think it 
will work as a replacement but there is a chance that it won't depending what the 
firmware checks. I'm glad you're getting a CW12-TIM to check it out to save me 
from the gamble. I might be willing to try one of the CW12-TIM boards on the 
Synergy Systems adapter board as a replacement for my M12+ if you have good 
luck. I would still have to use the Synergy Systems adapter board that is needed 
to interface the M12+ to the main board in the 565 to make it fit into the UT+ 
footprint but the big gain in the 1PPS stability should be unaffected.  Please keep 
us posted on your progress.

-Arthur 


More information about the Time-nuts_lists.febo.com mailing list