WWVB clock

[Terry S]

As I mentioned in a previous thread -- my Jeff Thomas WWVB clock is broken. A couple members here offered help, which I appreciate. But as novel and cool as the WWVB clock approach is, it's a bit of a dated design and I'm investigating doing something more "modern" with the big Z568M tubes.

For those that may not know, the clock uses a modified "atomic" clock module from an ordinary WWVB sync'd wall clock. An 8 pin PIC set up as a timer manipulates the lone input on the clock board as if a user was pressing the button, setting the initial time and then allowing the WWVB receiver to speed up or slow down the conventional CMOS counters on the clock board to sync with WWVB time. It was truly an ingenious approach to have precise timekeeping back in the day.  (Hours still had to be set manually by the user, using a magnet and reed switch.)

With the advent of easy WIFI this approach is dated, the clock modules are difficult to find, and there is some tedious clock board rework to do, which I admit was easier to do when I had the right tools and magnification at my disposal. Problem I need to solve.

Soooo...... I'm seeking out an open source design I can use/adapt for my big tubes. I'd like to lay out the boards myself so I can match the current footprint and use my existing enclosure. I'm not hung up on the whole "not invented here" syndrome -- I'm happy to use something well tested.

Arduino based would be ideal, but I can work with most anything. Retired now so looking to learn new tools.

Any suggestions?

Terry

[gregebert]

I've been using Raspberry Pi for all my designs now; built-in WiFi makes auto-adjusting clocks trivially simple, as long as I have internet service...... My RZ568m clock is still under construction. The basic design uses HV5530's in a serial chain, with each chip driving 2 tubes. The boards are chained with 10-conductor ribbon-cable, and I have a small level-shifter PCB to boost the signals of the RasPi or FPGA to 12V. Let me know if you want any of the design; nothing special in the design though. I dont have any usable software (it's diagnostic-only), because the actual clock is far more complex and will run with the FPGA and RasPi doing a lot of other non-nixie work.

The timekeeping software is really pretty simple: grab the time-of-day from the OS, then map the 6 digits onto specific bits in the serial chain, and send the serial bits at least once per second (I use 10x/second), and "roll" the digits rapidly when the minutes or seconds hit 59.

[Richard Scales]

Check the Open Source PRISM design by Ian Sparkes - I have used this for several different clocks based on Dalibors tubes - I have changed the design to suit my needs but overall - it is the PRISM and uses his software to setup and control it.

 - Richard