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WTD: WWVB receiver

D

Donald

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am looking for WWVB receiver to add to an existing product.

I found at Digikey: 561-1005-ND

This receiver module: C-MAX CME8000-BUS-LP-01

Are there other modules like this but cheaper.
I am looking for 50-100 units.

Clocks with receivers in them cost $10. So these modules must be cheap
somewhere.

Any links to offshore sites would work.

Thanks

donald
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Donald said:
I am looking for WWVB receiver to add to an existing product.

I found at Digikey: 561-1005-ND

This receiver module: C-MAX CME8000-BUS-LP-01

Are there other modules like this but cheaper.
I am looking for 50-100 units.

Clocks with receivers in them cost $10. So these modules must be cheap
somewhere.

Any links to offshore sites would work.

It's the same like it is with LCD modules. A module will always be
somewhat of a boutique part and thus expensive. Considering your low
quantity the only way I see is buying a clock and parting it out. But
you'd have to weigh your engineering time against that effort and quite
frankly I believe then these modules would be the better deal. With some
luck you could find a fire sale somewhere but searching for that also
costs valuable time.

The only way to get below a few Dollars is to design it all from scratch
and then produce a gazillion of them.
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's the same like it is with LCD modules. A module will always be
somewhat of a boutique part and thus expensive.

Worse, in fact. LCD modules are actually used in relatively high+
volume products (I can see several of them in commercial products
without getting out of my desk chair). If you wanted to duplicate the
functionality you'd need to add pretty much as many parts as are on
the module-- there is no micro in them, and really little or no
duplication.

You can be sure there is no such module inside a $10 retail product--
or rather the 'module' is (at best) a discrete chip for the receiver.
At worst, it could be a corner of a chip.
Considering your low
quantity the only way I see is buying a clock and parting it out.

They are probably designed around a single chip for the radio portion.
There are still a few parts outside such as tuning fork crystal
filters and passives, as well as the ferrite antenna. You can see the
radio portion on the left-hand part of the module. The right-hand
portion is what you probably don't need to buy if you already have a
microcontroller in your product. So, find that ASIC (eg. from Temic
nee Telefunken) and compare costs including amortized engineering
time.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Actually, sometimes there is. For example, when my trusty old HP-III
printer died I parted out the LCD. Lo and behold it was a nice two-line
version with a HD44780 compatible chip on there. Same in the old Toshiba
fax (single-line). Same in the old Sanyo fax (two-line again). Sweet. Of
course, they bought those by the gazillion. But now I don't have to wait
for a Digikey order if I quickly need to pipe out some alphanumeric
data. I could even do that in Japanese ;-)


Yep. Sometimes it is better to use a complete chip, disregard 90%+ of
its innards and try to tap off a signal at one of its younger stages.
I've done that a lot with radio comms chips where all I needed was the
RSSA output.

Anything wrong with these........

http://www.ntp-time-server.com/wwvb-receiver/wwvb-receiver.htm

Of course I can't find a price list :-(

...Jim Thompson
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Spehro said:
Worse, in fact. LCD modules are actually used in relatively high+
volume products (I can see several of them in commercial products
without getting out of my desk chair). If you wanted to duplicate the
functionality you'd need to add pretty much as many parts as are on
the module-- there is no micro in them, and really little or no
duplication.

You can be sure there is no such module inside a $10 retail product--
or rather the 'module' is (at best) a discrete chip for the receiver.
At worst, it could be a corner of a chip.

Actually, sometimes there is. For example, when my trusty old HP-III
printer died I parted out the LCD. Lo and behold it was a nice two-line
version with a HD44780 compatible chip on there. Same in the old Toshiba
fax (single-line). Same in the old Sanyo fax (two-line again). Sweet. Of
course, they bought those by the gazillion. But now I don't have to wait
for a Digikey order if I quickly need to pipe out some alphanumeric
data. I could even do that in Japanese ;-)
They are probably designed around a single chip for the radio portion.
There are still a few parts outside such as tuning fork crystal
filters and passives, as well as the ferrite antenna. You can see the
radio portion on the left-hand part of the module. The right-hand
portion is what you probably don't need to buy if you already have a
microcontroller in your product. So, find that ASIC (eg. from Temic
nee Telefunken) and compare costs including amortized engineering
time.

Yep. Sometimes it is better to use a complete chip, disregard 90%+ of
its innards and try to tap off a signal at one of its younger stages.
I've done that a lot with radio comms chips where all I needed was the
RSSA output.
 
D

Don Lancaster

Jan 1, 1970
0
Donald said:
I am looking for WWVB receiver to add to an existing product.

I found at Digikey: 561-1005-ND

This receiver module: C-MAX CME8000-BUS-LP-01

Are there other modules like this but cheaper.
I am looking for 50-100 units.

Clocks with receivers in them cost $10. So these modules must be cheap
somewhere.

Any links to offshore sites would work.

Thanks

donald

Reliable reception of WWVB in many parts of the country is extremely
difficult.

At the very least, a low noise area and an outdoor antenna might be needed.

I researched this in depth many decades ago and published an Experiments
with WWVB story in RE, sometime areound 1974 or so.

The availability of 60 kHz tuning fork crystals for use as a system
filter does help bunches.

But, generally, an ultra accurate PLL timebase should track the output,
being corrected only during early morning hours.

The fact that the whole service is a second tier backwater tells you it
sucks.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: [email protected]

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
 
D

Don Lancaster

Jan 1, 1970
0
Don said:
Reliable reception of WWVB in many parts of the country is extremely
difficult.

At the very least, a low noise area and an outdoor antenna might be needed.

I researched this in depth many decades ago and published an Experiments
with WWVB story in RE, sometime areound 1974 or so.

The availability of 60 kHz tuning fork crystals for use as a system
filter does help bunches.

But, generally, an ultra accurate PLL timebase should track the output,
being corrected only during early morning hours.

The fact that the whole service is a second tier backwater tells you it
sucks.

August 1973. page 48-51

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: [email protected]

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Reliable reception of WWVB in many parts of the country is extremely
difficult.

At the very least, a low noise area and an outdoor antenna might be needed.

I researched this in depth many decades ago and published an Experiments
with WWVB story in RE, sometime areound 1974 or so.

The availability of 60 kHz tuning fork crystals for use as a system
filter does help bunches.

But, generally, an ultra accurate PLL timebase should track the output,
being corrected only during early morning hours.

The fact that the whole service is a second tier backwater tells you it
sucks.

I did pretty good in August, 1974, using coherent AGC/detection, with
an 8" diameter loop antenna wound inside a piece of 1/2" copper pipe
(insulated couplers used to avoid shorted turn effects from the
shield). (See the S.E.D page of my website.)

But I'll grant you that fluorescent lighting will do a number on your
reception.

...Jim Thompson
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's the same like it is with LCD modules. A module will always be
somewhat of a boutique part and thus expensive. Considering your low
quantity the only way I see is buying a clock and parting it out. But
you'd have to weigh your engineering time against that effort and quite
frankly I believe then these modules would be the better deal. With some
luck you could find a fire sale somewhere but searching for that also
costs valuable time.

The only way to get below a few Dollars is to design it all from scratch
and then produce a gazillion of them.

Or, if you pick the right offshore factory, you could produce a Brazillion
of them. ;-P

Cheers!
Rich
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am looking for WWVB receiver to add to an existing product.

I found at Digikey: 561-1005-ND

This receiver module: C-MAX CME8000-BUS-LP-01

Are there other modules like this but cheaper.
I am looking for 50-100 units.

Clocks with receivers in them cost $10. So these modules must be cheap
somewhere.

Any links to offshore sites would work.

FWIW,
http://www.google.com/search?q="wwvb+receiver"
returns "about 557" hits.

But I'm wondering, how hard would it be to slap together an ordinary
60 KHz TRF receiver, and just look at its output? Decoding it, of course,
would be left as an exercise for the student. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich
 
D

Don Lancaster

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rich said:
FWIW,
http://www.google.com/search?q="wwvb+receiver"
returns "about 557" hits.

But I'm wondering, how hard would it be to slap together an ordinary
60 KHz TRF receiver, and just look at its output? Decoding it, of course,
would be left as an exercise for the student. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich
A straight decode would likely be useless.

Instead, you would need a PLL that gets modified only when data is
consistently valid.



--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: [email protected]

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Don said:
So have the local am noise sources.
Even bigger time.

I can remember people in California telling me back then that WWVB was
just not strong enough. Nowadays it is. Right in front of me is a WWVB
clock that synchronizes every single night (it shows when it failed)
except on rare occasions where a nightly thunderstorm hit the area. Ok,
it took a while to find the "right" spot for the clock but then again
the building is completely insulated with AL-backed fiber in all walls.
Including some interior ones.

BTW the first set of batteries lasted a whopping five years. And this is
a low cost edition ($19.95 at Sam's Club). If the OP would part one of
those out he'd get a mighty fine WWVB receiver plus a humongous LCD
display for other nice projects. Like a DVM that can be read at age 100
without glasses :)
 
D

DaveM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joerg said:
I can remember people in California telling me back then that WWVB was just
not strong enough. Nowadays it is. Right in front of me is a WWVB clock that
synchronizes every single night (it shows when it failed) except on rare
occasions where a nightly thunderstorm hit the area. Ok, it took a while to
find the "right" spot for the clock but then again the building is completely
insulated with AL-backed fiber in all walls. Including some interior ones.

BTW the first set of batteries lasted a whopping five years. And this is a low
cost edition ($19.95 at Sam's Club). If the OP would part one of those out
he'd get a mighty fine WWVB receiver plus a humongous LCD display for other
nice projects. Like a DVM that can be read at age 100 without glasses :)

I live in Florida, and have several of these clocks hanging in my house. I also
have an elcheapo watch that I bought about 5 years ago from WallyWorld for less
than $5 (they were on clearance). All work perfectly, and all sync up every
night.
The watch syncs up perfectly even when I wear it to bed. The instructions say
that in order to get a reliable signal, the watch should be oriented so that the
top of the watch faces Boulder, CO. I have no idea which direction it's facing
when I'm catching those serious ZZZs, but it never fails. And Florida is a bit
further away from Boulder than California is... {:>)
Had to replace the battery in the watch just before Xmas, so it lasted about 5
years. Not bad for $5.

Cheers!!!

--
Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just substitute the appropriate characters in the
address)

Life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer to the end, the faster it goes.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rich said:
FWIW,
http://www.google.com/search?q="wwvb+receiver"
returns "about 557" hits.

But I'm wondering, how hard would it be to slap together an ordinary
60 KHz TRF receiver, and just look at its output? Decoding it, of course,
would be left as an exercise for the student. ;-)

If you have the crystal or better yet two of them, not very. I did that
back in high school since our geology teacher wanted the kids to listen
to the signal. I used lots of plain old opamps and IIRC a couple of
AF126. In them days opamps didn't have enough GBW, today you could do it
with two. This was for 77.5kHz because it was a German school. You could
see the signal nicely on a scope (from the physics lab) and this was at
about 8:30am, not midnight. A crystal was in the "not affordable"
category back then, so lots of LC.

The deal was sweet: I was forgiven all homework the previous day if I'd
build the receiver.
 
J

Jim Yanik

Jan 1, 1970
0
I did pretty good in August, 1974, using coherent AGC/detection, with
an 8" diameter loop antenna wound inside a piece of 1/2" copper pipe
(insulated couplers used to avoid shorted turn effects from the
shield). (See the S.E.D page of my website.)

But I'll grant you that fluorescent lighting will do a number on your
reception.

...Jim Thompson

did your loop antenna have an internal 60Khz amp?

The Spectracom WWVB antenna (ferrite bar antenna) I used while at TEK had
one in it,and I was able to use the (8161)system inside our office that had
metallized window glass,and was chock full of fluorescent fixtures.

The amp was a simple transistor one(2 xstr,IIRC) using silver mica caps to
BW-limit the amp.DC power was fed thru the coax.
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Actually, sometimes there is. For example, when my trusty old HP-III
printer died I parted out the LCD. Lo and behold it was a nice two-line
version with a HD44780 compatible chip on there. Same in the old Toshiba
fax (single-line). Same in the old Sanyo fax (two-line again). Sweet. Of
course, they bought those by the gazillion. But now I don't have to wait
for a Digikey order if I quickly need to pipe out some alphanumeric
data. I could even do that in Japanese ;-)

Neither of those cost $10 retail. I suppose that it's barely possible
to see an LCD module in a $10 retail item, but I have not seen it.

I tried subbing an OLED 2 x 20 module into my Siemens phone base
station but it didn't work (probably a timing issue). Another 2-line
HD44780-based module did work. A little hot glue and it's good for
another year or two.
Yep. Sometimes it is better to use a complete chip, disregard 90%+ of
its innards and try to tap off a signal at one of its younger stages.
I've done that a lot with radio comms chips where all I needed was the
RSSA output.

Also a useful approach with some of the PC related I/O stuff. Ignore
all the unnecesary stuff and extra leads.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
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