[time-nuts] TymServe 2100 was: The GPS 1995 problem and the Heol Design solution.

Brooke Clarke brooke at pacific.net
Sun May 17 22:32:50 UTC 2015


Hi Sean:

Do you have any data on how many TymServe 2100 units have this problem?
Would a solution be to add a daughter board between the existing GPS and the TymServe 2100 that would correct the year?
This might be a straight forward PIC microcontroller.

Mail_Attachment --
Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html
http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html
Sean Gallagher wrote:
> Good afternoon everyone,
>
>     So as most (all) of you are aware at this point what seems to be like all of the Trimble Ace III GPS receivers 
> have looped around their entire lifespan and are setting the date back to 1995. This is affecting many people with the 
> Datum/Symmetricom TymServe 2100 units. My company had two such units (we had purchased a second one when the +1 second 
> UTC thing happened not realizing it was a firmware v3 and 4 problem) and also a slew of Datum 635/637 PCI cards which 
> use the Trimble Ace III as well.
>
>     After some scrounging around on the web I found that a company in France, Heol Design 
> (http://www.heoldesign.com/), had created an Ace III clone. I contacted them for some information and a quote on what 
> sounded the most promising. These were the N014 and N024 units which were quoted to me as 85 euro for the 014 and 90 
> euro for the 024. I also asked them if they thought their units would correct the date problem and they reached out to 
> Trimble who apparently was not able (or willing?) to provide an answer. Olivier Descoubès with Heol Designs however 
> was willing to work with me for testing purposes and sent me 2 of the N024 units so that I could test and see if they 
> would work as true drop in replacements. I have attached the data sheets that I received on the units as well for your 
> viewing.  I'm not as technical as most of you so maybe you'll see something that I don't get that you can work with.
>
>     The units came in yesterday after COB and so this morning was the moment of truth. Short answer to everything is 
> they don't seem to work. I hooked it in to both of my 2100's first the older Datum branded one then the newer 
> Symmetricom brand (although they look physically to be the exact same underlying board) really just to try and cover 
> all my bases. I let the first one go for about an hour and the second for only half an hour since I was already 
> thinking this was a bust. While it was hooked up though I telnetted in and went into the GPS menu. It gave me my 
> Lat/Long position and the satellites command was able to show me that I had plenty of coverage, but it was unable to 
> give me the time.
>
>     After that I hooked it on to one of my 635PCI cards and got one of my backup servers going. I started up the Datum 
> application and it did go into GPS mode which was at first promising. Typically with these cards if there is a problem 
> between the GPS receiver and the Datum card then it will automatically come up in Time Code mode and won't even 
> recognize the GPS. I let it run for about an hour while I ran to lunch and when I came back it had still not put out 
> time.
>
>     My guess is that these new receivers use the "Extended date" format or whatever it's called that adds more bits on 
> (3? - sorry I can't remember specifics) to correct the rollover and changes it from 15 years to like 157 or something 
> like that. And it seems like this older equipment that a lot of timing solutions use cannot handle this new output and 
> thus can't decode it. Again I'm just a Junior in college so this is all just theory but it's what my gut feeling is.
>
>     I've also attached pictures of these new units. They are the same size and have the 8 pin stack. There is 
> additionally a 10 pin stack that I had to trim down to get it to fit. Also the antenna connector is an SMB, same as 
> the Ace III, however it is on the other plane of the board. So if you were looking at putting it in a 635PCI card like 
> me I had to use tin snips and cut out a notch on the front plate of it to make it fit.
>
>     So it looks like I had to take a page from Mr. Andrew Cooper's book and have set up a rig like his using the two 
> 2100's in unison. I have GPS going into the older one which I have reverted back to it's oldest firmware (2.84 I 
> think) and thus avoided the 1 second problem. This older unit is putting out a 1PPS into the newer one set mode for 
> 1PPS that is on V3.1 of firmware with the time and date manually being set through telnet. Trying to do it at the unit 
> face is not feasible don't try it and I couldn't do this on the 2.84 firmware version for some reason it wouldn't 
> recognize the commands. A colleague of mine seems to think for some reason that I might start getting drift again with 
> this setup. He said that the 1PPS may not be enough to discipline the other 2100 do you guys have any thoughts on 
> that? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me as it's just a pulse
>
>     I had kind of a crazy thought earlier based on a project that I had considered doing. I've seen on the internet 
> that some people have taken a Raspberry Pi and made a timing solution out of it. At least one using what looked like 
> the same type of Trimble III card.
>
> http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/Raspberry-Pi-NTP.html
> http://musingsfromthe8thfloor.com/2015/02/08/stratum-1-ntp-server-on-raspberry-pi/comment-page-1/
> https://digitalnigel.com/wordpress/?p=1781
>
> Does anyone think it would be possible to do this with these new receivers and get it to work? Even if it was only 
> used to discipline some larger clock unit like the 2100? Or maybe even using the older receivers but making the RPi 
> correct the rollover problem somehow? It looked like without me putting a lot of work into it I wouldn't be able to 
> get it going because of having to learn the pin programming and electrical theory etc. And I unfortunately do not have 
> the resources at work currently to follow this line of thinking.
>
> **** I have just received an email from Olivier and they are aware of the TS2100 issue from a customer of theirs in 
> France. That customer is shipping them the unit so that Heol can investigate it in action with a 2100 and can maybe 
> come up with a solution.****
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.




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