Wanted: A Very Accurate Timer

Can I get recomendations for the most accurate electronic timer that I can buy?

It must to be accurate to within 1/60th of a second over the course of

6 hours.

Is something like this commercially available, or will I have to build it, or have someone build it?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

Reply to
Searcher7
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GPS recievers. I've seen some with an alarm function. However, 1/60th of a second in 6 hours isn't impossible to do otherwise.

Reply to
Ian Stirling

An ordinary digital clock powered from the AC line is more accurate than that.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

On the surface, shouldn't that be "as accurate as that"? In North America and other 60-Hz realms, at least.

I have heard horror stories about short-term inaccuracies in the power system 60 Hz timing, that it is only guaranteed to be accurate within 1 cycle per day, for instance.

And I found this tidbit googling around for accurate clocks: "GPS time was zero at 0h 6-Jan-1980 and since it is not perturbed by leap seconds GPS is now ahead of UTC by 13 seconds."

Reply to
Richard Henry

As I understand it, for grid-power-hopping to work, the accuracy is _much_ better than that.

I think that's nonsense.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

*** GASP!!!!!! ***

An error of one part in 5,184,000??!?!?!?!?!

How could anyone possibly tolerate that???!?!?!?!?!

;^)

Reply to
EL

I

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build

otherwise.

America

I recall working with a marketing guy a few years back who had a customer interested in a ruggedized PC that had timing accurate to 1 second/month, even when turned off. He thought the PC's real-time clock chip would be ok, because it has its own battery.

Reply to
Richard Henry

Dan, Sadly enough, there have been a number of replies to your question, but none have attempted to answer it directly. But, you didn't state the intended use or desired method of operation of the timer. Assuming that you are looking for a handheld timer suitable for tasks such as cooking or sunbathing, almost any of the common timers available at outlets such as Radio Shack, Target, Walmart, etc. should fill your bill. They are all crystal controlled, and although their accuracy isn't usually stated in the specs, they should easily meet your requirements. If you're looking for an industrial timer that can control other devices, then you need to specify what kind of equipment or the power requirements of the equipment.

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Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net  (Just subsitute the appropriate characters in 
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Reply to
DaveM

You really need to say more about the enviroment. Crystals, can relatively easily get to 1ppm. (you need just slightly better than this), and with a crystal oven to control the temperature, accuracies better that 0.1ppm, are relatively easy. Omega offer off the shelf timing systems warranted to better than this. Some radio transmitters in most countries have warranted accuracies (usually on the long-wave), and a receiver, with a PLL locked onto this can give superb accuracies (some warrant 0.01ppm, and some go even further - in the UK, the 60KHz used for this, is maintained to better that

2 parts in 10^12). In the US, WWVB, broadcasts a similar signal. These same transmitters are usually the ones carrying MSF time and date information, and the master source is usually now an atomic clock. Some of the receiver systems for these, have inputs for the distance to the transmitter, and give 'real time', compensated for this to mSec or better accuracies. The master clock for the GPS system, provides similar accuracies. A receiver, with local PLL, can be used again to get access to this clock. Mains provides good 'long term' accuracy, but in the short term is poor, and would not meet your requirements in this regard. So, if you have access to radio reception, look at using a local oscillator locked to the WWVB transmissions. Otherwise you will need to consider a high accuracy crystal, in a suitable oven. If internet connectivity is available, you could use a time server, and a local clock slaved to this (units to do this are off the sheld items). In the UK, one of th companies doing a range of products using these technologies, are:
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Best Wishes

Reply to
Roger Hamlett

Hello Darren,

This lets me assume that you need some kind of electronic triggering.

1/60th of a second is to precise for a finger to push a button.

Check out the sports markets. The devices for swimming relay contests may not quite offer 6 hours but equipment for marathons or triathlons should. It has been a while since I did competition swimming but I vaguely remember that the stuff mostly came from the major watch companies, usually from Switzerland.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

I had thought that maintaining an accumulated deviation of no greater than 1/60 sec in 6 hours is about like 24 seconds/year or 2 seconds a month. This is

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

[...]

Just checking the math: 1/(6*3600*60)=7.716E-7

You are right. That may be difficult without an oven.

Darren's spec may be a little tight. Normally, people who need to measure to that precision already know the methods and where to get the needed equipment.

The next question : what is he measuring that is that stable? I don't know of anything that is expressed in seconds with

Reply to
Mike Monett

" snipped-for-privacy@mail.con.com" bravely wrote to "All" (24 Jun 05 09:35:29) --- on the heady topic of "Wanted: A Very Accurate Timer"

Se> From: snipped-for-privacy@mail.con.com Se> Xref: aeinews sci.electronics.design:24723 Se> sci.electronics.repair:51346

Se> Can I get recomendations for the most accurate electronic timer that I Se> can buy?

Se> It must to be accurate to within 1/60th of a second over the course of Se> 6 hours.

Se> Is something like this commercially available, or will I have to build Se> it, or have someone build it?

Se> Any advice would be appreciated.

Se> Thanks a lot.

Darren,

A typical lcd wrist watch with an alarm has quartz crystal precision. What sort of use are you in need of a timer for? Cooking eggs? What?

A*s*i*m*o*v

... Acme Corp: Unlimited credit for disadvantaged coyotes.

Reply to
Asimov

In order to be sure of the accuracy that you are seeking, I presume the timer woul dhave to have a readout in the order of 1/100's of a second.

Since this sort of accuracy is common in timing many sporting events (eg swimming, motor racing, running etc) a chat with the local swimming club etc might give you some leads to sources

David

snipped-for-privacy@mail.c> Can I get recomendations for the most accurate electronic timer that I

Reply to
quietguy

You can pick up a Radio Shack Model 100 from $5 and up on eBay. There is free software that will give you 8 separate accurate lap timers on that, one for each function key. It runs off 4 AA cells.

N
Reply to
NSM

6 hours would be 6 x 3600 x60 units = 1,296,000 or better than one part in 10^6.

That is heading into TCXO crystal oven country. Or possibly locking to a NIST radio source such as WWV or WWVB.

Or, at the very least, a calibration from a traceable source.

Loosen your spec.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster
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Reply to
Don Lancaster

It's about one part in 13 million, so, yes, this is pretty difficult. You won't do this with a straight crystal oscillator, and I don't know if any of the GPS units actually give out a clock signal that's fast enough to measure 1/60 of a second.

HP makes a 10 MHz ovenized crystal oscillator which is much more stable than this, however. There is one on ebay now for about $85. That's about as cheap as you are likely to find for this level of precision.

Do you really need this much precision?

-

----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Reply to
Jim Adney

You will certainly find what you need here, though whether it is within your budget may be another matter. They have units that are far better than 1ppm accurate.

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Or, have you considered a simple PC application that syncs its time from NIST via the Internet using an NTP client? Virtually free and accurate to

Reply to
Richard H.

Once you have this precision, you need some way to reliably use it.

I always get a chuckle out of "Star Trek". They've got massive computers calculating precise timing, trajectories etc. but they always initiate it with an imprecise verbal command, "ENGAGE". mike

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Reply to
mike

I'm sitting here looking at my homebuilt digital clock that is counting

120 zero crosses of the AC line as its 1 second time base. Motorola processor. Do you need the absolute accuracy or would counting 2,592,000 AC zero crosses do the trick? GG
Reply to
Glenn Gundlach

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