Robert Darlington wrote:
Basically I need something to provide time within one second. I can't roll
my own in this case. At home I have a Soekris box with a custom built gps
board for my normal level of time-nuttery but this is not for home. I'm
looking for commercially made rack mount servers that will not have Internet
access for reference and will need to rely on gps. The system will need to
serve time to less than 100 systems but it will live in a nasty environment
in the back of a humvee (or something like an S-250 electronics enclosure)
with no air conditioning of any sort. I'm currently looking at Symmetricom,
Trimble NetRS, EndRun, and Meinberg.
Also, I apologize if I'm breaching protocol with this thread. This is just
about the first post I ever saw on this list that didn't get a steady stream
of replies. I was actually questioning if this even made it into the list
till I saw this reply. Yes this is for work and I could really use some
opinions on this stuff since dropping $4-6k isn't in my nature to do at home
for a network clock so I never gave this thought before.
Thanks again,
Bob
I've used True-Time (now Symmetricom) boxes for about 10-11 years at
work to do time and frequency in lab sorts of environments. You've
identified all the big players in the field for off the shelf boxes,
really, all you have to do now is just find the one that works for you
in terms of options, etc.
If this application is a "sit in the corner and be a time source" then
an all-in-one box designed for the need is pretty attractive. Sure, you
could scrounge up an old (or new) PC, load software, connect some sort
of USB or RS232 interface GPS, etc. But, I suspect that if you're doing
it at work, the cost of your time to scrounge, assemble, document, and
test would be more than just writing a check for a kilobuck or so to any
of the commercial vendors, which would get you a shiny new debugged box
with a user manual and a warranty.
Of course, if your "work" is somewhere with free labor ("Hey, Bob, for
your senior project, how about making a GPS time server") that can
change the strategy....
As does the possibility of used gear.. Not quite as nice as when there
were pallet loads of Z3801s for a few hundred bucks each...but stuff
does turn up (e.g. all those Thunderbolts)
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