Making an electronic clock is pretty easy here in 2023, with a microcontroller capable of delivering as many quartz-disciplined pulses as you’d like available for pennies. But how did engineers generate a timebase back in the old days, and how would you do it today? It’s a question [bicyclesonthemoon] is answering, with a driver for a former railway station clock.
The clock has a mechanism that expects pulses every minute, a +24V pulse on even minutes, and a -24V pulse on odd ones. He received a driver module with it, but for his own reasons wanted a controller without a microcontroller. He also wanted the timebase to be derived from the mains frequency. The result is a delve back into 1970s technology, and the type of project that’s now a pretty rare sight. Using a mixture of 4000 series logic and a few of the ubiquitous 555s [bicyclesonthemoon] recovers 50Hz pulses from the AC, and divides them down to 1 pulse per minute, before splitting into odd and even minutes to drive a pair of relays which in turn drive the clock. We like it, a lot.
Mains-locked clocks are less common than they used to be, but they’re still a thing. Do you still wake up to one?
- SEO Powered Content & PR Distribution. Get Amplified Today.
- Platoblockchain. Web3 Metaverse Intelligence. Knowledge Amplified. Access Here.
- Minting the Future w Adryenn Ashley. Access Here.
- Source: https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/a-clock-timebase-no-microcontroller/
- :is
- $UP
- 1
- 2023
- a
- AC
- and
- ARE
- AS
- available
- back
- BE
- before
- capable
- Clock
- Clocks
- Common
- controller
- Days
- delivering
- Derived
- DID
- down
- drive
- driver
- Electronic
- Engineers
- Even
- Every
- expects
- few
- For
- Former
- Frequency
- from
- generate
- here
- How
- http
- HTTPS
- in
- IT
- jpg
- like
- Lot
- many
- mechanism
- minute
- minutes
- mixture
- module
- of
- Old
- on
- ONE
- own
- own reasons
- plato
- Plato Data Intelligence
- PlatoData
- pretty
- project
- pulse
- question
- Railway
- RARE
- reasons
- received
- Recovers
- result
- Series
- Sight
- station
- Still
- Technology
- that
- The
- Them
- to
- today
- TURN
- ubiquitous
- Wake
- Wake Up
- wanted
- which
- with
- without
- would
- zephyrnet