[time-nuts] Thunderbolt temperature sensor [WAS: Recommendations for a newbie?]

Charles P. Steinmetz charles_steinmetz at lavabit.com
Sat Sep 8 17:01:19 UTC 2012


Bob wrote:

>The strange temperature chip in the later TBolts isn't much of an 
>issue. The chip is poorly located for temperature control. It only 
>seems to impact the plots on Lady Heather. Trimble wasn't bothered 
>enough by it to patch the firmware.

My experience is consistent with this.  While switching the chip on 
one, I used the opportunity to bring the chip temporarily outside of 
the Tbolt housing on a cable to investigate whether the Tbolt makes 
any use of the temperature data.  Neither freeze spray nor bringing a 
soldering iron near the chip, when it was outside the Tbolt housing 
and the housing was insulated from the changes in chip temperature, 
seemed to have any effect on the operation of the Tbolt, either 
normal or in holdover.  I have also run Tbolts with the new 
temperature chips for long periods, and have not observed any 
systematic differences in performance between them and units with the 
older chips, either in normal operation or in holdover.

I suspect that the temperature sensor was provided so telcom 
operators could get a rough idea of the temperature in remote 
cell-site transmitter shacks.

Best regards,

Charles










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