[time-nuts] Timebase Replacement - Seiko Epson RTC-72421

[Corey Sukalich]

Hi all,

New to the list, but have known of its existence for a while as I know others 
that have been subscribers.

My question pertains to a timebase used in a Schulmerich carillon bell tower 
system from the 1990’s.

The Seiko Epson RTC-72421 Real Time Clock Module (4-bit) is used, but the clock 
ends up walking to a noticeable degree (minutes) over a period of months.  Is 
this expected for the device in question, or could it possibly have a defect?

Datasheet available here:
https://support.epson.biz/td/api/doc_check.php?dl=brief_RTC-72421&lang=en 
  

From what I can tell it uses an internal oscillator, so it sounds like I would 
need to find a drop-in replacement or build a module that will replace it with 
a significantly better time standard.  Any advice is appreciated as to whether 
could be accomplished without too much trouble.  I’ve repaired a few of these 
systems over time and there are enough of them still in the wild that it might 
be worth me fabricating a module for them.

Also, on the off chance someone is versed in EPROM data recovery or knows of a 
resource for it, I would appreciate that information as well.

Regards,
Corey
N9WIV
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Re: [time-nuts] FA2

[Didier Juges]

Of course, if you want to run Lady Heather, Android is not an option. And
the RPi is a comprehensive Linux platform with all the tools that come with
it.
For what Bert wants to do though, the Android tablet has a lot more going
for it. Besides, he already has it :)

On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 8:09 PM Mark Sims  wrote:

> The "official" 7" PI touchsrceen (800x480) sells for $60 at MicroCenter.
>  Lady Heather has a built in touch keyboard or you can use the PI's touch
> keyboard routine.   But touchscreen keyboards can be a pain to use for a
> lot of typing.  Heather lets you attach script files to the function keys.
>
> The Smartipi Touch case is very nice.  It sells for less than $20.  They
> also sell extended back covers where you can mount some boards, etc.  My
> alarm clock is  built into one (uses a SIRF GPS module and a battery backup
> board):
>  https://smarticase.com
>
> The combination won't be as cheap as a low end Android,  but will probably
> be a lot more functional.
>
>
> ---
>
> >Raspberry Pi has no display, no keyboard. If you add those, you far exceed
> the cost of a 7" tablet and you still have a pile of stuff that barely fits
> in a shoe box let alone in a decent looking enclosure and that you would
> not want to leave on a table unattended.
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[time-nuts] FA2

[Mark Sims]

The "official" 7" PI touchsrceen (800x480) sells for $60 at MicroCenter.   Lady 
Heather has a built in touch keyboard or you can use the PI's touch keyboard 
routine.   But touchscreen keyboards can be a pain to use for a lot of typing.  
Heather lets you attach script files to the function keys.

The Smartipi Touch case is very nice.  It sells for less than $20.  They also 
sell extended back covers where you can mount some boards, etc.  My alarm clock 
is  built into one (uses a SIRF GPS module and a battery backup board):
 https://smarticase.com

The combination won't be as cheap as a low end Android,  but will probably be a 
lot more functional.


---

>Raspberry Pi has no display, no keyboard. If you add those, you far exceed
the cost of a 7" tablet and you still have a pile of stuff that barely fits
in a shoe box let alone in a decent looking enclosure and that you would
not want to leave on a table unattended.
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Re: [time-nuts] Thunderbolt frequency error when locked

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

Well, you need to leave a lot out to keep it brief. 

The answer is “somewhere in the 1x10^-10 to 1x10^-11 range. As long as you
are not stating a tau or a confidence factor, any number in that range could be
right. 

=

Based on having done this a lot of times there are a couple of ways to present 
the
numbers.

1) Fractions of a hertz. Since you get into mili and micro pretty fast, along 
with a bunch
of decimals this can indeed loose people pretty fast. If the environment is one 
where
multiple frequencies will be used / considered / discussed, fractions of a 
hertz gets 
a bit crazy.

2) Scientific notation. Obviously, this is a common choice. Since the exponent 
is ever 
changing it also can tangle people up,

3) Engineering notation. *IF* everything can be kept in one magic range, this 
usually 
works best. Talking about 100 ppt and 0.1 ppt ( or ppb or ppm) seems to get the 
point
across without generating an enormous disconnect. You have one discussion about 
what a ppt is and then move on.

…. back to gazing out over lovely Loveland CO. 

Bob

> On Oct 2, 2019, at 12:32 PM, David Van Horn via time-nuts 
>  wrote:
> 
> I'm writing up a presentation for some sales guys, and I need the typical 
> frequency error of the thunderbolt in marketing friendly terms like "plus or 
> minus X millihertz"
> 
> What would that number be?   Short term only.
> 
> --
> David VanHorn
> Lead Hardware Engineer
> 
> Backcountry Access, Inc.
> 2820 Wilderness Pl, Unit H
> Boulder, CO  80301 USA
> phone: 303-417-1345  x110
> email: 
> david.vanh...@backcountryaccess.com
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Thunderbolt frequency error when locked

[Bill Beam]

I have three units running.  Lady Heather reports osc error as <+/-10-100 ppt,
about 10 milliHz.  This is real time reporting every sec.

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 18:32:19 +, David Van Horn via time-nuts wrote:

>I'm writing up a presentation for some sales guys, and I need the typical 
>frequency error of the thunderbolt in marketing friendly terms like 
"plus or minus X millihertz"

>What would that number be?   Short term only.

>--
>David VanHorn
>Lead Hardware Engineer

>Backcountry Access, Inc.
>2820 Wilderness Pl, Unit H
>Boulder, CO  80301 USA
>phone: 303-417-1345  x110
>email: 
>david.vanh...@backcountryaccess.com

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Bill Beam
NL7F




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Re: [time-nuts] FA2

[Didier Juges]

Raspberry Pi has no display, no keyboard. If you add those, you far exceed
the cost of a 7" tablet and you still have a pile of stuff that barely fits
in a shoe box let alone in a decent looking enclosure and that you would
not want to leave on a table unattended.
A cheap Android tablet is hard to beat if you need a display and keyboard
and having played quite a bit with both, my RPis are still all in the same
box where they came in while a number of Android tablets are used
throughout the house as remote controls for a number of things.
The most recent is a$49 7" Fire tablet to use also as a controller. Nice
piece of hardware for the cost.
Writing Android apps using a tool like B4A is a lot of fun, with a Visual
Studio like environment.

Of course, if you need a lot of discrete IOs, the RPi is very handy.

Didier KO4BB

On Wed, Oct 2, 2019, 12:00 PM shouldbe q931  wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 4:00 PM ew via time-nuts 
> wrote:
>
> > Good Morning DidierThank you for your response. The "ONLY" thing we would
> > like to do is record and display the info coming out of the RS post. To
> day
> > making long term observations ties up a PC or Laptop with fans and a
> > HP53132. Gone for a week the main concern is fan failure. Store the info
> on
> > the Tablet in a SD chip or in it and when ready download through the USB
> > port that we use for importing data to a memory stick for further
> processing
> >
> 
>
> Rather than a tablet, might I be so bold as suggesting using a fanless PC,
> such as a RaspberryPi (other small fanless computers are available).
>
> Cheers
>
> Arne
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Re: [time-nuts] Lady Heather running on a Raspberry Pi

[mp...@clanbaker.org]

Time Nutters--

A friend set up a Raspberry Pi (R-Pi) for me to run Lady Heather.
It runs 24/7 and is viewed on a small (12" diagonal) monitor
sitting on a shelf over my workbench.  Living out here in the
boon-docks our grid power has frequent interruptions.   I am
running both the Trimble unit and the Raspberry-Pi on a
small UPS back-up pure sinewave power supply.

However, after a prolonged grid power loss interval the LH
software re-boots itself and displays the Lady Heather screen
there is an issue: It is that when the R-Pi does an automatic
re-boot the LH display screen is around 1/4 of the monitor
screen's size.

No big deal as all I have to do is to drag the lower right corner
of the LH display out to the corner of the screen.

I have not found how to get LH to reboot itself and have a
full size, corner-to-corner display.  I have not found anything
in the LH manual that corrects the display size on boot-up.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated!!!

Mike Baker  WA4HFR
Micanopy, FL  USA
**


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[time-nuts] FA-2 manual

[djl]

Just did a rough edit of the FA-2 manual; downloaded to KO4BB. Just 
edited out the Chinese. The usb commands section is pretty rough, needs 
to be wrung out, no time just now.
Old MS Word compatibility format. The block diagram did not appear. I 
think, for the price, this is, as the Brits have it, a pretty good piece 
of kit.

Don

--
Dr. Don Latham  AJ7LL
PO Box 404, Frenchtown, MT, 59834
VOX: 406-626-4304


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[time-nuts] Thunderbolt frequency error when locked

[David Van Horn via time-nuts]

I'm writing up a presentation for some sales guys, and I need the typical 
frequency error of the thunderbolt in marketing friendly terms like "plus or 
minus X millihertz"

What would that number be?   Short term only.

--
David VanHorn
Lead Hardware Engineer

Backcountry Access, Inc.
2820 Wilderness Pl, Unit H
Boulder, CO  80301 USA
phone: 303-417-1345  x110
email: 
david.vanh...@backcountryaccess.com

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Re: [time-nuts] FA2

[shouldbe q931]

On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 4:00 PM ew via time-nuts 
wrote:

> Good Morning DidierThank you for your response. The "ONLY" thing we would
> like to do is record and display the info coming out of the RS post. To day
> making long term observations ties up a PC or Laptop with fans and a
> HP53132. Gone for a week the main concern is fan failure. Store the info on
> the Tablet in a SD chip or in it and when ready download through the USB
> port that we use for importing data to a memory stick for further processing
>


Rather than a tablet, might I be so bold as suggesting using a fanless PC,
such as a RaspberryPi (other small fanless computers are available).

Cheers

Arne
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Re: [time-nuts] FA2

[ew via time-nuts]

Attached is the corrected file of the data after the decimal.  The average is 
-8598.25  which is .91401 with the last 9 being -1 E-13.
Bert Kehren

In a message dated 10/2/2019 11:00:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
time-nuts@lists.febo.com writes:

Good Morning DidierThank you for your response. The "ONLY" thing we would like 
to do is record and display the info coming out of the RS post. To day making 
long term observations ties up a PC or Laptop with fans and a HP53132. Gone for 
a week the main concern is fan failure. Store the info on the Tablet in a SD 
chip or in it and when ready download through the USB port that we use for 
importing data to a memory stick for further processingThis counter is low 
power, no fan and has resolution that exceeded the ability of our sources. Not 
bad for a $120 device.We are presently experimenting using a ISC570 multiplier 
at 100 MHz and get 13 digits see attached  but the data out of the back is only 
12 digits reliable. Looking at averaging.13 digits frequency at 10 seconds even 
exceeds an 8607, only a saphire will do it.In the past we have run a few 570's 
at 200 MHz will try, that way we will be able to monitor the 5MHz output of a 
HP5065A with 5 E-14 resolution.To day running aging test we average a 24 hour 
run against GPS. Example HP5065A against Tbolt. We repeat the test in 20 days 
or a month..We also use a handy 10 psec. resolution long term monitor using a 2 
channel counter modification that Richard MCC did for us 7 years ago. The 
counter we use with dual mixer.
Bert Kehren


In a message dated 10/1/2019 11:05:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
shali...@gmail.com writes:

Bert,

FA-2 uses serial emulation over USB with an FTDI chip. As far as I know,
this is not supported under iOS. The best way to get serial data into an
iOS device appears to be through a WiFi module. In this case, you would
have to go from USB to WiFi, not very practical.

Android supports serial via USB and through Bluetooth serial profile, so
you have more options.
To connect the FA-2 to an Android tablet, the FTDI chip should make it very
easy.

However, I am not sure what you want to do with the data in an Android
tablet. Do you have software to process it? If so, it seems it would most
likely support serial. Looking through the Play Store, I did not see
anything timing-related but I did not spend much time looking.

What are you interested in displaying?

Didier KO4BB


On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 2:12 PM ew via time-nuts 
wrote:

> Didier FA2 is USBBert
> In a message dated 9/29/2019 12:02:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> shali...@gmail.com writes:
>
> Android tablets support serial com via USB. You need an adapter which
> should be easy to find (google Serial Adapter for Android). Of course you
> will need the right software at the tablet end to do what you need.
> IOs does not support serial com natively (at least did not when I checked a
> year or two ago) so you would need more hardware to get the data into an
> IOs device.
> What do you want to do with the data in a tablet?
> I write Android apps so I may be able to help if you need to capture the
> data in some format.
>
> Didier KO4BB
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:25 AM ew via time-nuts 
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > We use Serial com to interface with a PC  It would be nice if some one
> > could find a way to transfer the data to a tablet.
> >
> > Thanks  Bert Kehren
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> >
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FA-2_100MHz_Average.ods
Description: application/oleobject
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[time-nuts] FA2

[Mark Sims]

Maybe try running Lady Heather on a Raspberry PI?   My PI config is a PI with 
their "official" 800x480 touchscreen all mounted in a SmartiPI case/stand.  
Heather can collect data from the FA2 and echo it to a file all while 
displaying the data and calculating and plotting ADEV/HDEV/MDEV/TDEV and MTIE,

--

> To day making long term observations ties up a PC or Laptop with fans and a 
> HP53132.
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Re: [time-nuts] FA-2 Counter Questions

[djl]

Thanks!!!

On 2019-10-01 18:18, Didier Juges wrote:
I got it and cleaned it a little. It is in the Timing section, search 
for

"bg7"
I put the original *.doc file and a PDF. If someone with an actual unit
decides to clean the manual some more, feel free to upload back.

Didier KO4BB

On Tue, Oct 1, 2019, 4:00 PM Bryan _  wrote:


I think most of them are going here. Top of the page opens applet to
upload.

http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=manuals


-=Bryan=-


From: time-nuts  on behalf of 
Richard

Solomon 
Sent: October 1, 2019 10:06 AM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement <
time-nuts@lists.febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] FA-2 Counter Questions

Be happy to upload it if someone
can tell me where I should go to
do it.

73, Dick, W1KSZ

On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 3:35 AM Mark Sims  wrote:

> Can you post a copy of the manual?  Nobody that I've talked to has seen
> any manual or documentation.We've assumed that the "P" means the PLL
is
> locked and the '*' indicates the unit has an input signal.
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--
Dr. Don Latham  AJ7LL
PO Box 404, Frenchtown, MT, 59834
VOX: 406-626-4304


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