Not to kick sand in your face, but it seems that in order for your automated turn-over device to work, as well as to accurately measure the time intervals, you would need a means to determine when the sand quits flowing.
Correct. It's not unlike a zero crossing detector. The period of the sand flowing cycle is only 0.000278 Hz (1/hour).
Possibly an accelerometer or microphone, with the added benefit of being able to hear the close-in phase noise.
I wasn't planning on it but an optical detector sampled by a sound card might also give a pleasant audio signal as well as a data source from which the end-of-sand point can be determined with greater accuracy.
I admire your dedication to monitoring the hour long periods of the sand timer so diligently. Truly a time-nut!
You now all see why the hourglass is on top of the H-maser. Issues of installation, environment, reliability, instrumentation, gravity, data analysis, noise, stability and long-term frequency drift are very similar for both clocks. And given the sand inside, it's also a ... quartz crystal oscillator. /tvb _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
