Oh Clive... "I have to turn it over to see where the components are" while it is literally laying on a giant picture showing the other side of the PCB :-)
You could superimpose a mirrored photo of the underside of the board on top of the photo of the top of the board with something like 50% transparency..
17:44: If I may be so bold as to speak for that portion of your audience that's almost completely clueless regarding electronics (like myself): Seeing you "fumbling" around (like *not* having measurements done beforehand and such) is actually interesting, because it gives insight into the thought process. Feel free to elaborate more on your "fumbling" (like what are you trying to figure out and why does measuring X or probing Y help with that). But don't worry about being unprepared or anything. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have to be like those cooking shows that have everything prepared in advance and where nothing ever goes wrong. *shrug*
Clive's fumbling and figuring things out was what gave me a huge confidence boost a few years ago when I was feeling like I was unskilled at everything and would never finish anything I ever started.... I still have projects that haven't been finished some years later, but hey... Now I know it's perfectly OK to not have a clue why something is or isn't working 😂 I hope he never changes.... Or at least not too much.
There is no point in a video where you just pull out a sheet with all the numbers on it, it would be like a wood turning or machine shop video where you cut from a blank to the finished project. We watch to see an expert doing what they do best in a relaxing way.
54.32°N, 4.38°W, for what it's worth. As far as putting that relay coil on the emitter side of the driver, it gives you current limiting. As the current in the coil increases, it raises the voltage at the emitter and the base tracks the emitter voltage, raised by a diode drop. That reduces the voltage drop across the 7.5k resistor, and that in turn reduces the base current, and with it the emitter current. Other notable point: that rail probably is 30v. The end of the relay coil isn't at ground, it's at 4.1v or thereabouts, which leaves 26v at the max drive voltage across the relay.
When I was an apprentice BT was converting it's kiosk electrics and replacing the mechanical timeswitches. They were splendid cyberpunky brass dial affairs and I bought a couple on impulse (50p+vat) They had a self adjusting 365 day dial that switched on an incandescent bulb at dusk by using a series of cogs and a strange parabolic master cam to track the seasons - they were accurate to a couple of seconds a year. by means of a simple induction drive that used the guaranteed mains 50 hz frequency to count the seconds ... they were rock solid accurate and ran un-maintained, often for years (barring powercuts) The one I had in the garage switched the backdoor light and ran for 14 years and only lost 7 minutes.
Hah, perhaps more stable in the UK but there’s a cool story about “Guaranteed Mains Frequency”, which you’ve probably already seen: www.entsoe.eu/news/2018/03/06/press-release-continuing-frequency-deviation-in-the-continental-european-power-system-originating-in-serbia-kosovo-political-solution-urgently-needed-in-addition-to-technical/
@Joseph Redfern - Hadn't seen the article, It was the 1970s when I started, we were told the UK government guarantee was cast in iron because so many industries used it. How accurate it actually was - I have no idea @@@bigclivedotcom Hi! - no, It would have been 1973 when I bought them, Of course all our kit was marked with the government arrow and stamped with year and month but I can't remember what it was - they were post war, maybe 1947 or so. Red pressed metal and Bakelite oblong (about the size and shape of the modern domestic time-switch you'd get in tesco) metal chassis with an open brass dial front, even the contactors were open! The clock and fuse was sealed in a cast iron power box so punters were safe.
Amazing the video was filmed on May 15 at 1:41am, and TH-cam says it was uploaded on May 14, and given that my timezone is 10 hours ahead of Clive, that means TH-cam is admitting that the video was uploaded on the afternoon of May 13 his time, almost two days before he filmed it! Maybe it was a bit of an astrological clock after all, seeing into the future! (Yes just to be clear this a dig at TH-cam's lack of attention to detail...)
@@benbaselet2026 Given how much Clive mentions his slow Internet connection, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't upload the same video multiple times if he could help it 🙂
@@benbaselet2026 Seems like a lot of hassle for Clive though! I think it's far more likely that TH-cam have just forgotten that people exist in different timezones and are displaying everything in whichever timezone most of their developers are located in.
Yeah.... it's the same when photocell controlled. I don't care how bright or not it is outside if I can't see my own hand in front of my face while inside 😁
@@_Steven_S Done right, with any dark areas lit by 24 hour on lights, and only daytime bright areas covered by a photocell works fine. But you're right, they are very often not sited right to keep dark areas well lit. I only ever wired one ex-council close with stairlights, 8 flat close in dennistoun, never again, getting paid separately by 8 customers is horrific. Factor not contactable.
I love how simple that is inside, just a couple of PCB's connected with 3 wires, I was expecting all sorts of things to fall out when you pulled it apart. It's also interesting to see that they tried to comply with some safety requirements but completely failed to identify any risk of the device cooking itself to death ! I suppose they imagine that if it stops working, you will just buy a new one (=profit) but if they kill you then you can't so best to let you live and the timer die !
That "mains play" reminded me that I actually got a 230 volt zing a couple of days ago when working on an open device. I can't remember the last time it happened, probably decades ago. Classic story, you've been reminding yourself how to work with stuff for a long time but then that one moment of relapse happens... touch protection still pays off. I some times stick some kapton tape or something to insulate things before powering open stuff up. I guess I'll be doing more of that in the future after this reminder.
I used to rest or tape piece of plain old photocopy paper over stuff where there was a risk of either touching something I shouldn't or dropping something I shouldn't onto something that won't like it (usually a small screw onto a computer motherboard when doing live removals of parts). Not ideal, but works if that's what you have on hand.
That relay on the emitter is placed that way so the connected transistor is at a higher working voltage than the first transistor by 1.2 volts. If the relay was on the collector side, the two transistors would be at the same voltage, so base voltage applied wouldn’t turn them on
Looks like it would be a nice part for just the clock module alone, useful by it's self, but it's also a PIC micro with a few port pins broken out and the programming pins labeled on the board, nice for repurposing for other projects.
Thanks for the video .. I have same timer tried to use it but could not use it due to this complicated unclear instruction sheet provided and it has been collecting dust since then , now I can give it another shot.
Just in case there are children watching: 22:05 Describing the resistor as under-rated is inaccurate. The resistor is likely to be under-sized rather than under-rated. When we de-rate cables in BS7671 we use larger CSA's to allow for factors such as ambient temperature, erection method etc. An example would be laying cable in loft insulation to carry say 16A. Normally 1.5mm cable would be suitable, but the derating factor of 50% in Table 52.2 would apply. We have to use 4mm cable and de-rate it by 50% from 37A to 18.5A. It would be inaccurate to say that a 4mm cable on a 16A circuit is over-rated. The cable has been under-rated or de-rated to a value lower than its normal 37A because of its location.
I think your next project should be an astrological clock! Just like, some LEDs with different "futures" printed with the label maker, and you push a button and one randomly lights up. Kind of a janky electronic Magic 8 Ball type thing. 😂
Hey Big Clive. I watch all your videos and always learn something new. Thanks for that. This video was particularly interesting to me as I hope to start keeping chickens soon. Huh! Let me explain. I don't want to have to get up at the crack of dawn every day to open the coop door to let the hens out. That means I need some sort of automatic system to do that for me. Ideally it would open the door 30 minutes after sunrise and close it again 30 mins after sunset. I've seen lots of ideas on TH-cam but they mostly use light sensors. This is not a reliable method in my climate (N.I.). This 'astronomical' timer seems like it might be the answer. I'll need to 'hack' it as my coop does not have mains power but it looks like it should be easily hacked. Thanks again Clive. Gerry.
I got a battery operated coop door opener that works off a light sensor, it's actually been very reliable in Lancashire latitudes, had it over a year & haven''t changed the original pp3 yet; it's never failed to let the chickens out & lock them back up again. Look up "FLYING BANTAM~Automatic Chicken/Hen House Door Opener and Door Kit" on Ebay. That said, yeah the TM623 might be good too, and possibly a bit cheaper to rig up!
That transistor arrangement is cleverly designed to limit energy waste and heat build up. When the relay is off there will only be a tiny current path through the transistor emitter to base, enough to power the module and a tiny amount of charge for the cell. There will be bugger-all current flowing through the 'charging' Zener until the relay is energised at which point the relay coil is dropping most the of rail voltage anyway and limiting dissipation. Well thought out.
17:23 - Clive, did you know that a nice person took a picture of the PCB with the components on it and printed it in a huge scale, no? No? Never heard of that? Okay then…
It's ironic in a way that such a thing should be made in China. The country spans five time zones, but the Party insists on having only one, so if you're a long way West from Peking you will find your lights going on and off hours before sunset and sunrise.
I think the world should use 1 time zone - it'd make far more sense. Nothing wrong with going to bed at 3pm - or whenever if that is night-time for you. At least if someone suggests a time for a chat, you'll know immediately what you'd be doing at that time of day and know whether it was an inconvenient time or not immediately without having to work things out.
pmailkeey - blooming ‘eck, someone having the same idea as me on the stupid time zones that we currently have. I agree, there should only be ONE time zone on Earth, “Earth time”. That would also kick “daylight saving time” into history as well (and you don’t save any daylight or time). Another idea that should have been dropped many, many years ago.
As a famous electronics professor once said, gadgets like this are designed by people who are incapable of designing computers. This device has 5 buttons, which is more than enough to implement an easy-to-use menu system to set the various times and options, yet the designer has managed to make it almost impossible to use. You can actually do it with 3: all you need is two buttons for forwards and backwards (or up and down) and a third as a select button, with a single double button press (up and down together) to unlock the programming mode. A fourth and fifth are nice to have to make it simpler and a bit more intuitive - maybe a back or cancel button and a separate accept button. But what have we got? Random sequences of random buttons, which would be impossible to fathom out without a manual. My cooker is the same. Twice a year, when the clocks go forward or back by an hour, it takes me 10 minutes to fathom out how to reset the clock - I always remember that it involved pressing 2 buttons together, so it's a case of trying all combinations until I hit on the right one. The reason it takes 10 minutes is that all sorts of other undesired, never-used options get selected by mistake on the way, so I also have to figure out how to cancel those too.
The reason why you would normally place an NPN transistor on the low side of the load when it's used for switching is voltage drop. The base to emitter junction of a BJT behaves like a diode and assuming a 0.7V voltage drop across it is a good approximation. However, the colector to emitter voltage is lower when the transistor is in saturation but this implies that the base voltage must be higher than the colector voltage. In this case the colector is connected directly to Vcc (24V) and therefore the base voltage can't be higher than the colector voltage and this means that the transistor will be dropping at least 0.7V from colector to emitter and therefore it will also dissipate more power as heat. I was going to go into the possible reasons why they might have decided to do things that way but then I remembered that the reset terminals are right next to the AC power input and that they sort out the internal battery in the most horrible way possible. So I'm going to assume that absolutely no thought went into the design of this thing.
As you watch it for time slippage be sure you don't have the latitude function engaged. In that mode it appear to keep Local Sidereal Time; not Standard Time (or the Daylight Savings version.) A Sidereal Day is about four minutes shorter than a solar day. You can compare the time it keeps against a local sunrise/sunset table in that mode; to see if it stays accurate keeping Sideral time as well as Standard Time
I don't understand where you are getting this from. Sidereal time is very useful for astronomy (distant stars) but is not useful for predicting sunrise and sunset. You would have to convert from sidereal time to solar time (good luck with that) before you could calculate sunrise/sunset.
Have now received my very own TM623. I've set the time (to GMT) & latitude, and set up just the first on/off slot. I've set 'on' at 1625hrs with latitude adjustment, (little planet in the LCD visible) and 'off' much later in the evening without latitude adjustment (no little planet). 1625hrs is today's official sunset time at my location according to time and date dot com. Hopefully going forward this will cause the output to switch 'on' every day at the calculated point of dusk, then switch off later. Regarding British Summertime / DST it seems it's blind to it (nothing I could see in the manual & I tried setting it to Sun 28-03-2021 005959hrs - it rolled over to Sun 28-03-2021 010000hrs without adding an hour all by itself) but, will still track actual dusk ok, relative to GMT. So in the British summer, the 'off' time will appear to shift to an hour later than the winter time, by the wall clock unless one manually "springs forward" the TM623's clock (which would then also necessitate reprogramming the on time). I'm going to try adding an auto-BST non-astronomical timeclock in series, and have the TM623's off time set to a very late value, say 1am) to get a fully automatic overall system that requires no twice yearly resetting, which will always switch on the lights at dusk and then off at a specific fixed time later in the evening, say 11pm, regardless of BST status. e.g. www.switchtec.com/Products/single-voltage-digital-time-clocks/SDT-EDW-230 That way, those who get used to the lights switching on at dusk and then off at a specific time by their wristwatch, won't get caught unexpectedly in the dark when I inevitably forget to put the clocks forward or back!
I have an industrial PLC cabinet with DIN rails. I also have LOTs of logic to calculate sun-rise and sunset. This module should do this requiring only one more input contact to the ladder logic. The panel runs on 24VDC so I will just cut out all the mains stuff to supply the +24V rail directly. I will be interested in how well it keeps time.
A little off topic Clive, but could you show us how you go about reverse engineering a circuit? Mainly drawing the schematic part and working out track/connection placement from a picture.
Clive all that convoluted npn switching is just for battery charging . The 33v & big bulk cap gives the relay time to switch on & hold before the power supply falls over as the relay is loading down the voltage ! Note The relay hold voltage is lower than the pull in voltage .
Another great Clive quote: 16:04 ... while this is powered, excellent, what could possibly go wrong But then, at 16:50, I'm cringing at the possibility that the mini-screwdriver will roll into the live circuit... 17:54, screwdriver moved away-crisis averted.
It's a shame that the charlatans get the -ology, (study of) and the real scientists get the -nomy (naming)..... It really should be the other way around.....
@@bobshowrocks I didn't say anything about biology.... I was pointing out that astrology (literally, star study) is bollocks and astronomy ( literally, star naming) is actually science, and really the titles should be the other way around....
At first I thought this would be a GPS-disciplined timer, and I was wondering why on Earth would you need that kind of precision for a DIN rail timer. As for the reset, I’m not sure you’re supposed to short it out, maybe it’s just a secondary effect of having the battery terminal exposed.
All of your videos start with this suttle bumping noise (i guess from tapping on record). In my brain this is so hardwired now that even if I find the tab I opened an hour ago and the video starts playing I can instantly tell its one of yours without looking.
I've noticed it when I record videos with my cell phone. (Actually, I've seen it in a few Android phones, some "thumps" are louder than others, the audio waveform actually spikes into the negative for a few frames of the video.)This is only I guess, but it might be the recording app switching the microphone "on."
What a handy little gadget! JUST what we need for the outdoor security lights, so we'll be buying a few. Thar rechargeable lithium cell is off the shelf via your usual suppliers (along with higher rated, similar footprint relays if you need more capabilty). Any idea of the purpose of the (unpopulated) C3 position (small electrolytic)? Thought it might be part of a contact protection system for the relay (but being a polarised device that'll not be the case)? Quite a few ways that power board might be modified to improve reliability and with everything easily accessible, the temptation's fairly great!
@@bigclivedotcom Might be worth popping one in there, when I'm rearranging the big Zener (and putting a disconnect in series with that lithium cell - safer way of re-setting if needed!)
Nothing makes you jump like pushing the itty bitty tiny manual/auto button on a timer for commercial lights connected to a high amperage contractor while up a wobbly ladder and have the relay slam into active a foot from your head
Goodness, our contractors go a bit fuzzy on a couple of micro-amps, high amperage would definitely bring out the orange waistcoat and socks brigade with clipboards a-quiver.
im more the type who just finishes stuffing the cover back on a conduit box and yelling to a guy in the other room "flip the breaker so i can check the lamp" and having a shower of sparks from the box right in front of you, 2 feet from your face up a wibbly wobbly ladder, time went kinda wimey
Or 90 deg North or South. Clive livestreams the timer display and rather than a light he feeds 240v into the reset input / lithium cell when the output changes state.
Have you ever come across cable screws coming undone in plugs that are left permanently plugged into a wall socket ( fridge/ freezer)? I even had the same happen to a moulded plug where the spot weld had come apart, found during careful dissection of the discoloured area. I can only put to down the the shock thermal load to connections with every current surge when the motor is switched on. Love your show.
Speaking of weird words, Clive, I'm reminded of the word 'horology' or 'horologist' , a clock or watch maker, or someone who studies time. Had a few funny moments with that word in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. :D Barbosa's daughter joined up with the crew and mentioned she is a horologist to Jack who took the word the wrong way and asked Barbosa if he knew his daughter was a whore. :D
On the one hand I want to see how well it keeps time and stays aligned to the hours of darkness, on the other, I want to see you plug it in with the wrong terminals at the top.
Shorting the battery out _is_ a bit naughty given its right next to the mains input. Wonder how many people will end up trying to reset the 240V mains instead? It will effectively reset the timer, probably permanently, but it might "reset" you along with it.
That is one of the most confusing UIs I've seen. The high-side drive isn't all that weird, it could have to do with the fact that the circuitry continues to charge the battery (slowly) when the relay coil is off.
Not the first time I've come across useless UI. Computer display settings are wrong too. I think from memory, 'contrast' does brightness and 'brightness' does blackness - and 'gamma' does contrast. It's not uncommon for me to relabel buttons to what they actually mean. To 'stop' Windows, first click 'Start'.
I would but they're sneaky buggers, I didn't even notice them when they replaced the nice orange SOX lamps with the current, really very dull & somewhat useless LED panels (as in, they may aswell not be there it's so dark some nights!), I also wanted one of those SOX lamps to save it from the scrapheap, but didn't get to them in time... :(
I am confused. You say it was set to turn off at 1:05 when darkness ends yet according to the internet (which never lies) sunrise is at 5am this time of year. So why does it get light at 1am at your place?
I'm wondering if an external push button Switch like a doorbell, could be connected to the reset terminals. Got to be better than shorting them with something metal when there so close to mains.
It seems quite a bit convoluted to set up. My Kasa light switch and lightbulb weren't much more money, and each can connect to the internet and automatically change with the sunset/sunrise, and it always gets up to date data. You just set the time in the app and that's it. The switch was only like $20-25 I think.
@@Polite_Cat This unit can pull about 16A at the load side. That's more than 3000W. With modern LEDs, that'll be an entire street or parking lot without the external kontactor.
I suspect contacts 3 & 4 are not for 'reset' but for external backup battery. OR to power additional from the internal battery. Dunno why they call it an astronomical timer. It's got bugger all to do with the stars ! It's what I'd call a 1-year timer (for any latitude). It's also IMO pointless. If you want light switching dependent on outdoor light levels, you'd use a photocell to detect those light levels - then it'd also compensate for cloud cover. As for the combo of coming on at dusk, going off at midnight, A conventional timer would do that better in combination with photocell. So no, I don't see a real use for this. Didn't some document mention longitude too ? It doesn't appear to deal with longitude ! (Whereas a photocell would !) It'd be absolutely no use at all onboard a ship !
The typical way it’s done in devices where cost is not a big object is to have a customized high-sensitivity GPS receiver inside the machine, and a fairly large patch antenna on the case (can be a meter square or more). If the thing isn’t underground, it’ll get enough signal to lock to at least one satellite and sync up the basics. Most GPS receivers are kinda stupid and refuse to tell you anything unless they lock onto enough satellites to get a position lock, whereas even one satellite is enough to tell your location with an error circle of a few dozen miles eventually (assuming you’re stationary). Once the receiver has received the almanac and ephemeris, it also has a rough time lock (accurate within dozens of milliseconds), since the correlator is locked onto the code stream. So it knows above what area on Earth the satellite it listens to is. That satellite must be above horizon, and that gives a circle of a bit over a hundred miles worst case - as soon as the satellite number and time was received. Once the received power during the entire satellite pass is recorded, the receiver can roughly estimate at what time the satellite was highest in the sky. It can then narrow the error circle to dozens of miles. And this doesn’t require locking onto precision codes nor even phase locking well enough for ranging data. This data can be derived from received signal strength and bit error rate of the signal alone, as long as the low rate code is locked to. And the quality of position lock from that data alone can be refined down to a kilometer or so within a day or a couple of days at most - by observing the transits of multiple satellites. So a stationary “piece of industrial machinery” certainly can know what time it is, and where on Earth it is, even if the quality of the GPS reception it has is crap. It works better when there’s internet connectivity because the GPS time will be known to a better accuracy, so the correlator has a better chance of locking earlier to a satellite when the signal is much weaker closer to the horizon. And in fact it’s not too complicated to implement all this - basically a SDR recording the GPS band and the rest is done on the GPU on the PC in the cabinet, and the signal processing can be done that’d be too expensive for energy constrained mobile receivers - apart of the antenna gain you also have several dB more sensitivity due to better processing.
Sinotimer make a good range of timers with good functionality, I use a couple of 12v ones on my solar fish pond pumps, very easy to program (easier than what's available at normal shops) and the clock is very accurate on mine.
@@bigclivedotcom Sry, off topic buy, I know that you like fake UV-C lights. They have one listed on Newegg for $70 (US)! Here's the link: www.newegg.com/p/1CJ-008H-00001?Item=9SIA77KB958236
@@bigclivedotcom That may be why it doesn't come up under their model list, plus real Sinotimers do not use an "O" in the name, they use a graphic to represent the "O" www.sinotimers.com. But either way the astronomical function is a big plus for a lot of uses.
Hi Clive, I don't normally make silly comments when very rarely slip ups are made in broadcasts but being a member of a voluntary service where an ability to plot positions on an admiralty chart is a requirement I noticed you started your demo of setting up the TM623 you entered your [Lat/Long] by setting [54 N] it should be {54.2361 degree N] after correcting yourself but you then totally forgot to enter the [LONG] setting which is [4.5481 degree W] for the Isle of Man. You then stated, thats how you set the Lat / Long. Sorry for being picky Clive but it was the only thing I could find wrong with your broadcast and at the same time thank you for some very interesting video's
But does this device even have a longitude setting, or does it simply use the latitude to calculate the sunrise/sunset seasonal variation to be added to the manually entered times?
Do you think that the screw terminals that are across the battery could be designed to connect to something to monitor the battery voltage rather than a reset line? I also saw an unused via on the LCD ribbon cable the said "res", I'm guessing a reset feature that was not populated..maybe?
Perhaps those terminals that you shorted aren't for reset, maybe they're for connecting an external Li-Ion cell (for areas where mains power might be more intermittent)?
Clive, could you show how to make a UVC 11W germicidal (mercury vapor) battery operated? perhaps by modifying the ballast that comes with it , it runs from 120V AC
Maybe the relay is where it is because the 24V supply rail can actually go up to 36V (as you measured it) when the relay is OFF ? Could that eventually damage something on the relay ? Btw, absolutely love the amplification printouts (pictures) and the chance you give us of reverse engineering the boards. Tks!
1AM, that’s shear luxury, ours go out just after midnight... It’s done for three reasons: primarily to save money (the local authorities now get less money from central government), 2 to save energy, and 3 to reduce light pollution that affects viewing of the night sky.
@@bigclivedotcom Particularly helpful was the info regarding the reset terminals going back to mains via the capacitative dropper. I will be mucho careful round those terminals!
I'm currently looking into having a UK exit sign of my own. The only issue i'm having is figuring out a way to convert or transform the power difference and all that so i can have the sign be on aka plugged in, all the time like it's supposed to be. I live in the US so the power is different here vs the UK. If you or anyone else can help with this, i'd be forever grateful!! i have no clue what i need in terms of equipment or knowledge of uk exit signs to carryout something so big. thanks in advance.
Yes in buildings and residential complexes that are large enough that you have one or more circuits dedicated to outdoor lighting, signage illumination, etc.
The DIN rail mounting allows it to be used in an industrial control panel as well. There are lots of DIN rail mounted devices such as PLCs which would probably never be used in a consumer unit, but are quite common for industrial control use.
Why are there always unpopulated capacitors? Is there an ongoing battle between board designers and manufactures over how many capacitors a circuit really needs?
It's a mixture of allowing positions for extra components "just in case" since it's much easier to add them during design than fudge them in later. There's also the issue of capacitor reliability. On modern designs the tiny surface mount capacitors are very prone to stress failures resulting in rogue resistance or shorts.
Surely you could have location and time data pulled from GPS rather than having to set it. You've already got the DC supply anyway. If you can't get a reliable GPS signal (understandable, it's a very noisy environment!) Then have a port for an external antenna or other location and time reference like a smartphone. Hell, if you are using a smartphone for reference, why not just have it connect via Bluetooth for initial setup and subsequent setting of timers
@@MartinE63 Ha ha, yep, it was the sellers description.... this thing beats a sextant & tables for latitude.... but John Harrison would be seriously unimpressed at 1 min/month accuracy for measuring longitude 😊.
![เป็นไปได้ไหม - WanMai [Performance Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Eh5hItD4Mr0/mqdefault.jpg)
Oh Clive... "I have to turn it over to see where the components are" while it is literally laying on a giant picture showing the other side of the PCB :-)
Why don't you look at the pictures you have taken
To be fair, it •was• almost 2am :-)
You could superimpose a mirrored photo of the underside of the board on top of the photo of the top of the board with something like 50% transparency..
@@stephanmantler That's still early for Clive ;-)
Oh, yeah, I was about to scream these words looking into the screen.
Feels like he prints these pictures mostly for us the viewers.
"What time is it? Let me just check. It's 1:41 a.m., that's terrible."
Made me look at the clock...
1:42 in the morning...
FML
17:44: If I may be so bold as to speak for that portion of your audience that's almost completely clueless regarding electronics (like myself): Seeing you "fumbling" around (like *not* having measurements done beforehand and such) is actually interesting, because it gives insight into the thought process. Feel free to elaborate more on your "fumbling" (like what are you trying to figure out and why does measuring X or probing Y help with that). But don't worry about being unprepared or anything. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have to be like those cooking shows that have everything prepared in advance and where nothing ever goes wrong. *shrug*
I agree - even though I understand what is going on, it gives me a warm fuzzy to see him do exactly what I would do.
I agree. Electronics diag is super interesting to me.
I just enjoy seeing the photo and seeing if out paths will me in how it works.
Clive's fumbling and figuring things out was what gave me a huge confidence boost a few years ago when I was feeling like I was unskilled at everything and would never finish anything I ever started....
I still have projects that haven't been finished some years later, but hey... Now I know it's perfectly OK to not have a clue why something is or isn't working 😂
I hope he never changes.... Or at least not too much.
There is no point in a video where you just pull out a sheet with all the numbers on it, it would be like a wood turning or machine shop video where you cut from a blank to the finished project. We watch to see an expert doing what they do best in a relaxing way.
"Don't touch it anybody, YOU'LL DIE."
Quotes from big Clive never get old.
At which point it could be an Astronomia time switch.
54.32°N, 4.38°W, for what it's worth.
As far as putting that relay coil on the emitter side of the driver, it gives you current limiting. As the current in the coil increases, it raises the voltage at the emitter and the base tracks the emitter voltage, raised by a diode drop. That reduces the voltage drop across the 7.5k resistor, and that in turn reduces the base current, and with it the emitter current.
Other notable point: that rail probably is 30v. The end of the relay coil isn't at ground, it's at 4.1v or thereabouts, which leaves 26v at the max drive voltage across the relay.
way to give away @bigclivedotcom 's home location XD
Cylogenix Gaming - Like Ramsey on the Isle of Man is hard to find 🤣
When I was an apprentice BT was converting it's kiosk electrics and replacing the mechanical timeswitches. They were splendid cyberpunky brass dial affairs and I bought a couple on impulse (50p+vat) They had a self adjusting 365 day dial that switched on an incandescent bulb at dusk by using a series of cogs and a strange parabolic master cam to track the seasons - they were accurate to a couple of seconds a year. by means of a simple induction drive that used the guaranteed mains 50 hz frequency to count the seconds ... they were rock solid accurate and ran un-maintained, often for years (barring powercuts) The one I had in the garage switched the backdoor light and ran for 14 years and only lost 7 minutes.
Hah, perhaps more stable in the UK but there’s a cool story about “Guaranteed Mains Frequency”, which you’ve probably already seen: www.entsoe.eu/news/2018/03/06/press-release-continuing-frequency-deviation-in-the-continental-european-power-system-originating-in-serbia-kosovo-political-solution-urgently-needed-in-addition-to-technical/
This one?
th-cam.com/video/3i_vfsuCpJY/w-d-xo.html
@Joseph Redfern - Hadn't seen the article, It was the 1970s when I started, we were told the UK government guarantee was cast in iron because so many industries used it. How accurate it actually was - I have no idea
@@@bigclivedotcom Hi! - no, It would have been 1973 when I bought them, Of course all our kit was marked with the government arrow and stamped with year and month but I can't remember what it was - they were post war, maybe 1947 or so. Red pressed metal and Bakelite oblong (about the size and shape of the modern domestic time-switch you'd get in tesco) metal chassis with an open brass dial front, even the contactors were open! The clock and fuse was sealed in a cast iron power box so punters were safe.
Down arrow on the top, up arrow on the bottom, I might have worked with the interface designers at one time.
They must have designed a spec I had to code to also...where 1 was off and 0 was on...
Apple: Think Different.
Bizarre positioning too - what is in effect 1 row of buttons spread to 2 rows alternating between them. Good job the item is valueless.
@@millomweb Actually, I would say that's the part that is a good design since it makes it harder to accidentally press adjacent buttons.
@@Tenosis That is a plus point that could be achieved by increasing the spacing !
Amazing the video was filmed on May 15 at 1:41am, and TH-cam says it was uploaded on May 14, and given that my timezone is 10 hours ahead of Clive, that means TH-cam is admitting that the video was uploaded on the afternoon of May 13 his time, almost two days before he filmed it! Maybe it was a bit of an astrological clock after all, seeing into the future! (Yes just to be clear this a dig at TH-cam's lack of attention to detail...)
Or maybe it was uploaded in bits filmed on separate days, joined and released?
@@benbaselet2026 Given how much Clive mentions his slow Internet connection, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't upload the same video multiple times if he could help it 🙂
@@Berkeloid0 I neve meant uploading the same material twice, but different segments maybe.
@@benbaselet2026 Seems like a lot of hassle for Clive though! I think it's far more likely that TH-cam have just forgotten that people exist in different timezones and are displaying everything in whichever timezone most of their developers are located in.
@@Berkeloid0 Ì bet 99% of people never look at such trivia so it could be anything.
Yeah go on Clive take it to bits I love a good teardown 😀 and reverse engineer. Always worth watching. Cheers 👍
I have obtained such an unit from Ebay, and thanks to your Video, I was able to program it.
You make nice videos. :-)
That thing looked MASSIVE in the thumbnail
That's what she said
Ahh, the latitude function as now used in Glasgow close and stair lighting installations. Completely outsmarted by an overcast day.
Yeah.... it's the same when photocell controlled. I don't care how bright or not it is outside if I can't see my own hand in front of my face while inside 😁
@@_Steven_S Done right, with any dark areas lit by 24 hour on lights, and only daytime bright areas covered by a photocell works fine. But you're right, they are very often not sited right to keep dark areas well lit. I only ever wired one ex-council close with stairlights, 8 flat close in dennistoun, never again, getting paid separately by 8 customers is horrific. Factor not contactable.
I love how simple that is inside, just a couple of PCB's connected with 3 wires, I was expecting all sorts of things to fall out when you pulled it apart.
It's also interesting to see that they tried to comply with some safety requirements but completely failed to identify any risk of the device cooking itself to death ! I suppose they imagine that if it stops working, you will just buy a new one (=profit) but if they kill you then you can't so best to let you live and the timer die !
That "mains play" reminded me that I actually got a 230 volt zing a couple of days ago when working on an open device. I can't remember the last time it happened, probably decades ago. Classic story, you've been reminding yourself how to work with stuff for a long time but then that one moment of relapse happens... touch protection still pays off. I some times stick some kapton tape or something to insulate things before powering open stuff up. I guess I'll be doing more of that in the future after this reminder.
IP XXB is a good thing.
Gotta love those 230V reminders :)
I used to rest or tape piece of plain old photocopy paper over stuff where there was a risk of either touching something I shouldn't or dropping something I shouldn't onto something that won't like it (usually a small screw onto a computer motherboard when doing live removals of parts).
Not ideal, but works if that's what you have on hand.
That looks like just what I was thinking to hook into our exterior lights around the barn.
Your videos are always enlightening.
I have the mechanical version of that, full of cams and gears and clever mechanical stuff.
Your content is the best thing to watch during lockdown.
That relay on the emitter is placed that way so the connected transistor is at a higher working voltage than the first transistor by 1.2 volts.
If the relay was on the collector side, the two transistors would be at the same voltage, so base voltage applied wouldn’t turn them on
Thanks Clive, I've got something similar where I live and I think I can program it properly now!
Looks like it would be a nice part for just the clock module alone, useful by it's self, but it's also a PIC micro with a few port pins broken out and the programming pins labeled on the board, nice for repurposing for other projects.
Thanks for the video .. I have same timer tried to use it but could not use it due to this complicated unclear instruction sheet provided and it has been collecting dust since then , now I can give it another shot.
Just in case there are children watching:
22:05 Describing the resistor as under-rated is inaccurate. The resistor is likely to be under-sized rather than under-rated.
When we de-rate cables in BS7671 we use larger CSA's to allow for factors such as ambient temperature, erection method etc.
An example would be laying cable in loft insulation to carry say 16A. Normally 1.5mm cable would be suitable, but the derating factor of 50% in Table 52.2 would apply. We have to use 4mm cable and de-rate it by 50% from 37A to 18.5A.
It would be inaccurate to say that a 4mm cable on a 16A circuit is over-rated. The cable has been under-rated or de-rated to a value lower than its normal 37A because of its location.
An astrological clock: "Two days and two hours from now, it will be 11:51. You're welcome."
I love this channel so much. Keep up the great work, man.
That's a neat timer... I've always had to manually reset my switch as the seasons changed.
I think your next project should be an astrological clock! Just like, some LEDs with different "futures" printed with the label maker, and you push a button and one randomly lights up.
Kind of a janky electronic Magic 8 Ball type thing. 😂
Bruxxus
Noooooooo, it’s Astronomical not astrological 😡
@@gasgiant7122 That's the joke....
@@gasgiant7122 duck…whooooosh!
😂 loving it
@@PhilBoswell I'm an Astronomer, we get lots of people comming to lectures asking about astrology, you could guess the kind of looks they get ha ha
Hey Big Clive. I watch all your videos and always learn something new. Thanks for that. This video was particularly interesting to me as I hope to start keeping chickens soon. Huh! Let me explain. I don't want to have to get up at the crack of dawn every day to open the coop door to let the hens out. That means I need some sort of automatic system to do that for me. Ideally it would open the door 30 minutes after sunrise and close it again 30 mins after sunset. I've seen lots of ideas on TH-cam but they mostly use light sensors. This is not a reliable method in my climate (N.I.). This 'astronomical' timer seems like it might be the answer. I'll need to 'hack' it as my coop does not have mains power but it looks like it should be easily hacked. Thanks again Clive. Gerry.
I got a battery operated coop door opener that works off a light sensor, it's actually been very reliable in Lancashire latitudes, had it over a year & haven''t changed the original pp3 yet; it's never failed to let the chickens out & lock them back up again. Look up "FLYING BANTAM~Automatic Chicken/Hen House Door Opener and Door Kit" on Ebay. That said, yeah the TM623 might be good too, and possibly a bit cheaper to rig up!
That transistor arrangement is cleverly designed to limit energy waste and heat build up.
When the relay is off there will only be a tiny current path through the transistor emitter to base, enough to power the module and a tiny amount of charge for the cell. There will be bugger-all current flowing through the 'charging' Zener until the relay is energised at which point the relay coil is dropping most the of rail voltage anyway and limiting dissipation. Well thought out.
17:23 - Clive, did you know that a nice person took a picture of the PCB with the components on it and printed it in a huge scale, no? No? Never heard of that? Okay then…
"What could possibly go wrong." while I stick my fingers in my ears waiting for the BANG!
It's ironic in a way that such a thing should be made in China. The country spans five time zones, but the Party insists on having only one, so if you're a long way West from Peking you will find your lights going on and off hours before sunset and sunrise.
I guess you would have to intentionally set the wrong time
Probably why they had to create it ;)
I think the world should use 1 time zone - it'd make far more sense. Nothing wrong with going to bed at 3pm - or whenever if that is night-time for you. At least if someone suggests a time for a chat, you'll know immediately what you'd be doing at that time of day and know whether it was an inconvenient time or not immediately without having to work things out.
pmailkeey - blooming ‘eck, someone having the same idea as me on the stupid time zones that we currently have. I agree, there should only be ONE time zone on Earth, “Earth time”. That would also kick “daylight saving time” into history as well (and you don’t save any daylight or time). Another idea that should have been dropped many, many years ago.
we already have utc if you want a single earth time. we already use it to calculate all other time rn.
You amaze me every time. Rob
As a famous electronics professor once said, gadgets like this are designed by people who are incapable of designing computers. This device has 5 buttons, which is more than enough to implement an easy-to-use menu system to set the various times and options, yet the designer has managed to make it almost impossible to use. You can actually do it with 3: all you need is two buttons for forwards and backwards (or up and down) and a third as a select button, with a single double button press (up and down together) to unlock the programming mode. A fourth and fifth are nice to have to make it simpler and a bit more intuitive - maybe a back or cancel button and a separate accept button. But what have we got? Random sequences of random buttons, which would be impossible to fathom out without a manual.
My cooker is the same. Twice a year, when the clocks go forward or back by an hour, it takes me 10 minutes to fathom out how to reset the clock - I always remember that it involved pressing 2 buttons together, so it's a case of trying all combinations until I hit on the right one. The reason it takes 10 minutes is that all sorts of other undesired, never-used options get selected by mistake on the way, so I also have to figure out how to cancel those too.
The reason why you would normally place an NPN transistor on the low side of the load when it's used for switching is voltage drop.
The base to emitter junction of a BJT behaves like a diode and assuming a 0.7V voltage drop across it is a good approximation. However, the colector to emitter voltage is lower when the transistor is in saturation but this implies that the base voltage must be higher than the colector voltage. In this case the colector is connected directly to Vcc (24V) and therefore the base voltage can't be higher than the colector voltage and this means that the transistor will be dropping at least 0.7V from colector to emitter and therefore it will also dissipate more power as heat.
I was going to go into the possible reasons why they might have decided to do things that way but then I remembered that the reset terminals are right next to the AC power input and that they sort out the internal battery in the most horrible way possible. So I'm going to assume that absolutely no thought went into the design of this thing.
As you watch it for time slippage be sure you don't have the latitude function engaged. In that mode it appear to keep Local Sidereal Time; not Standard Time (or the Daylight Savings version.) A Sidereal Day is about four minutes shorter than a solar day. You can compare the time it keeps against a local sunrise/sunset table in that mode; to see if it stays accurate keeping Sideral time as well as Standard Time
I don't understand where you are getting this from. Sidereal time is very useful for astronomy (distant stars) but is not useful for predicting sunrise and sunset. You would have to convert from sidereal time to solar time (good luck with that) before you could calculate sunrise/sunset.
I like the time on the clock in the add was 6:23. It's the little touches that make the difference.
Have now received my very own TM623. I've set the time (to GMT) & latitude, and set up just the first on/off slot. I've set 'on' at 1625hrs with latitude adjustment, (little planet in the LCD visible) and 'off' much later in the evening without latitude adjustment (no little planet). 1625hrs is today's official sunset time at my location according to time and date dot com. Hopefully going forward this will cause the output to switch 'on' every day at the calculated point of dusk, then switch off later. Regarding British Summertime / DST it seems it's blind to it (nothing I could see in the manual & I tried setting it to Sun 28-03-2021 005959hrs - it rolled over to Sun 28-03-2021 010000hrs without adding an hour all by itself) but, will still track actual dusk ok, relative to GMT. So in the British summer, the 'off' time will appear to shift to an hour later than the winter time, by the wall clock unless one manually "springs forward" the TM623's clock (which would then also necessitate reprogramming the on time). I'm going to try adding an auto-BST non-astronomical timeclock in series, and have the TM623's off time set to a very late value, say 1am) to get a fully automatic overall system that requires no twice yearly resetting, which will always switch on the lights at dusk and then off at a specific fixed time later in the evening, say 11pm, regardless of BST status. e.g. www.switchtec.com/Products/single-voltage-digital-time-clocks/SDT-EDW-230 That way, those who get used to the lights switching on at dusk and then off at a specific time by their wristwatch, won't get caught unexpectedly in the dark when I inevitably forget to put the clocks forward or back!
I have an industrial PLC cabinet with DIN rails. I also have LOTs of logic to calculate sun-rise and sunset. This module should do this requiring only one more input contact to the ladder logic. The panel runs on 24VDC so I will just cut out all the mains stuff to supply the +24V rail directly. I will be interested in how well it keeps time.
This is actually a cool product more stuff should use this mechanism instead of light sensors for detecting day and night tbh
It’s all fun and games with your fancy calendar clocks until the earth gets deflected off its axis. Light sensor always knows what is really going on.
A little off topic Clive, but could you show us how you go about reverse engineering a circuit? Mainly drawing the schematic part and working out track/connection placement from a picture.
Dave: Don't turn it on, take it apart.
Clive: Turn it on, explain it's functionality and faults and quirks, then take it apart.
Mehdi: Blow it up
Clive all that convoluted npn switching is just for battery charging .
The 33v & big bulk cap gives the relay time to switch on & hold
before the power supply falls over as the relay is loading down the voltage !
Note
The relay hold voltage is lower than the pull in voltage .
Another great Clive quote:
16:04 ... while this is powered, excellent, what could possibly go wrong
But then, at 16:50, I'm cringing at the possibility that the mini-screwdriver will roll into the live circuit... 17:54, screwdriver moved away-crisis averted.
It's a shame that the charlatans get the -ology, (study of) and the real scientists get the -nomy (naming)..... It really should be the other way around.....
According to Wikipedia, -nomy comes from the Greek suffix -nomia meaning "law" or "culture". So it's not too bad.
Why do much hate for biology?
@@bobshowrocks I didn't say anything about biology.... I was pointing out that astrology (literally, star study) is bollocks and astronomy ( literally, star naming) is actually science, and really the titles should be the other way around....
At first I thought this would be a GPS-disciplined timer, and I was wondering why on Earth would you need that kind of precision for a DIN rail timer. As for the reset, I’m not sure you’re supposed to short it out, maybe it’s just a secondary effect of having the battery terminal exposed.
It does tell you to short them in the manual.
All of your videos start with this suttle bumping noise (i guess from tapping on record). In my brain this is so hardwired now that even if I find the tab I opened an hour ago and the video starts playing I can instantly tell its one of yours without looking.
I've noticed it when I record videos with my cell phone. (Actually, I've seen it in a few Android phones, some "thumps" are louder than others, the audio waveform actually spikes into the negative for a few frames of the video.)This is only I guess, but it might be the recording app switching the microphone "on."
It's a recording device oddity. You'll also hear it if there's a sudden loud noise. It's the automatic gain control on the audio self oscillating.
Shouldn't you get a 1:1 safety transformer for your work probably?
Would reduce the risk of an uncomfortable shock^^
nice call to ElectroBoom
Clive occasionally does it here and there.
So if that 36V zener goes open circuit...? Ooops!
afaik here in Netherlands street lights are on all night at the dark hours
What a handy little gadget! JUST what we need for the outdoor security lights, so we'll be buying a few. Thar rechargeable lithium cell is off the shelf via your usual suppliers (along with higher rated, similar footprint relays if you need more capabilty). Any idea of the purpose of the (unpopulated) C3 position (small electrolytic)? Thought it might be part of a contact protection system for the relay (but being a polarised device that'll not be the case)? Quite a few ways that power board might be modified to improve reliability and with everything easily accessible, the temptation's fairly great!
It looks like a precautionary extra bit of filtering for the charging supply to avoid glitching the control module.
@@bigclivedotcom Might be worth popping one in there, when I'm rearranging the big Zener (and putting a disconnect in series with that lithium cell - safer way of re-setting if needed!)
Nothing makes you jump like pushing the itty bitty tiny manual/auto button on a timer for commercial lights connected to a high amperage contractor while up a wobbly ladder and have the relay slam into active a foot from your head
Goodness, our contractors go a bit fuzzy on a couple of micro-amps, high amperage would definitely bring out the orange waistcoat and socks brigade with clipboards a-quiver.
im more the type who just finishes stuffing the cover back on a conduit box and yelling to a guy in the other room "flip the breaker so i can check the lamp" and having a shower of sparks from the box right in front of you, 2 feet from your face up a wibbly wobbly ladder, time went kinda wimey
The kerning on the face plate printing is driving me batty. I assume they were going for SINO TIMER.
So, what happens if you set it to the Arctic Circle? Turns off your lights at the end of the season?
LOL
Or 90 deg North or South. Clive livestreams the timer display and rather than a light he feeds 240v into the reset input / lithium cell when the output changes state.
I noticed a reset terminal on pcb next to timer module input wires
FOOOOL BRIDGE RECTIFIAR
WRECTIFIRE!
rectum fryer??
You should really have a look inside the Freestyle Libre sensor and or the Lit Solar wireless powerbank. I have no clue if any of those are in the UK.
"there's no reset button". Give it a few months Clive, you'll find it. It's probably marked T
Have you ever come across cable screws coming undone in plugs that are left permanently plugged into a wall socket ( fridge/ freezer)? I even had the same happen to a moulded plug where the spot weld had come apart, found during careful dissection of the discoloured area. I can only put to down the the shock thermal load to connections with every current surge when the motor is switched on.
Love your show.
It can happen over time due to copper flow or just a change of cable position relative to how it was clamped.
Speaking of weird words, Clive, I'm reminded of the word 'horology' or 'horologist' , a clock or watch maker, or someone who studies time. Had a few funny moments with that word in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. :D Barbosa's daughter joined up with the crew and mentioned she is a horologist to Jack who took the word the wrong way and asked Barbosa if he knew his daughter was a whore. :D
On the one hand I want to see how well it keeps time and stays aligned to the hours of darkness, on the other, I want to see you plug it in with the wrong terminals at the top.
i don't get how flipping the AC lines on the input would affect it if it's rectified anyways though?
@@gd.ritter Two of the terminals bypass the rectifying and voltage dropping circuit and go directly to the 3.3v dc side for reasons unknown.
Shorting the battery out _is_ a bit naughty given its right next to the mains input. Wonder how many people will end up trying to reset the 240V mains instead? It will effectively reset the timer, probably permanently, but it might "reset" you along with it.
That is one of the most confusing UIs I've seen.
The high-side drive isn't all that weird, it could have to do with the fact that the circuitry continues to charge the battery (slowly) when the relay coil is off.
Not the first time I've come across useless UI. Computer display settings are wrong too. I think from memory, 'contrast' does brightness and 'brightness' does blackness - and 'gamma' does contrast. It's not uncommon for me to relabel buttons to what they actually mean.
To 'stop' Windows, first click 'Start'.
It's interesting for sure, but it's no Sangamo Solar timeswitch, I still want one of those (and have yet to acquire one affordably!!!)... :D
Next time you see the council guys working on street lighting ask them if they have an old one.
I would but they're sneaky buggers, I didn't even notice them when they replaced the nice orange SOX lamps with the current, really very dull & somewhat useless LED panels (as in, they may aswell not be there it's so dark some nights!), I also wanted one of those SOX lamps to save it from the scrapheap, but didn't get to them in time... :(
The problem with the solar switch is it doesn't allow for pigeons and leaves on your sensor.
14:16 Can't unsee soda cup with straw in it on lower left
I keep reading it as Snot timer. you have 30 seconds to complete nasal excavations in 3...2...1...
Kind of like a chess clock... But please don't hit the button after your turn.
I am confused. You say it was set to turn off at 1:05 when darkness ends yet according to the internet (which never lies) sunrise is at 5am this time of year. So why does it get light at 1am at your place?
I want to know this too.
The street lights don't stay on all night here. They go off at 1am.
Metric system.
@@bigclivedotcom Thanks Clive, I wondered if that might be the case.
Notice the RES (reset) connection next to the GND connection comming from the controle module
I'm wondering if an external push button Switch like a doorbell, could be connected to the reset terminals. Got to be better than shorting them with something metal when there so close to mains.
It seems quite a bit convoluted to set up. My Kasa light switch and lightbulb weren't much more money, and each can connect to the internet and automatically change with the sunset/sunrise, and it always gets up to date data. You just set the time in the app and that's it. The switch was only like $20-25 I think.
@Dave Micolichek Yes, I can see the benefit to this. When you say it can control a bunch of lights though, you mean 4, right? Each pair is one device?
@@Polite_Cat This unit can pull about 16A at the load side. That's more than 3000W. With modern LEDs, that'll be an entire street or parking lot without the external kontactor.
I suspect contacts 3 & 4 are not for 'reset' but for external backup battery. OR to power additional from the internal battery.
Dunno why they call it an astronomical timer. It's got bugger all to do with the stars ! It's what I'd call a 1-year timer (for any latitude). It's also IMO pointless. If you want light switching dependent on outdoor light levels, you'd use a photocell to detect those light levels - then it'd also compensate for cloud cover. As for the combo of coming on at dusk, going off at midnight, A conventional timer would do that better in combination with photocell. So no, I don't see a real use for this.
Didn't some document mention longitude too ? It doesn't appear to deal with longitude ! (Whereas a photocell would !) It'd be absolutely no use at all onboard a ship !
I was hoping it would automatically know where and when it was
…and also call home daily. Yeah.
The typical way it’s done in devices where cost is not a big object is to have a customized high-sensitivity GPS receiver inside the machine, and a fairly large patch antenna on the case (can be a meter square or more). If the thing isn’t underground, it’ll get enough signal to lock to at least one satellite and sync up the basics.
Most GPS receivers are kinda stupid and refuse to tell you anything unless they lock onto enough satellites to get a position lock, whereas even one satellite is enough to tell your location with an error circle of a few dozen miles eventually (assuming you’re stationary).
Once the receiver has received the almanac and ephemeris, it also has a rough time lock (accurate within dozens of milliseconds), since the correlator is locked onto the code stream. So it knows above what area on Earth the satellite it listens to is. That satellite must be above horizon, and that gives a circle of a bit over a hundred miles worst case - as soon as the satellite number and time was received. Once the received power during the entire satellite pass is recorded, the receiver can roughly estimate at what time the satellite was highest in the sky. It can then narrow the error circle to dozens of miles. And this doesn’t require locking onto precision codes nor even phase locking well enough for ranging data. This data can be derived from received signal strength and bit error rate of the signal alone, as long as the low rate code is locked to. And the quality of position lock from that data alone can be refined down to a kilometer or so within a day or a couple of days at most - by observing the transits of multiple satellites.
So a stationary “piece of industrial machinery” certainly can know what time it is, and where on Earth it is, even if the quality of the GPS reception it has is crap. It works better when there’s internet connectivity because the GPS time will be known to a better accuracy, so the correlator has a better chance of locking earlier to a satellite when the signal is much weaker closer to the horizon. And in fact it’s not too complicated to implement all this - basically a SDR recording the GPS band and the rest is done on the GPU on the PC in the cabinet, and the signal processing can be done that’d be too expensive for energy constrained mobile receivers - apart of the antenna gain you also have several dB more sensitivity due to better processing.
Sinotimer make a good range of timers with good functionality, I use a couple of 12v ones on my solar fish pond pumps, very easy to program (easier than what's available at normal shops) and the clock is very accurate on mine.
That's assuming this one is real. There are so many clones on eBay it's often hard to tell.
@@bigclivedotcom Sry, off topic buy, I know that you like fake UV-C lights. They have one listed on Newegg for $70 (US)! Here's the link: www.newegg.com/p/1CJ-008H-00001?Item=9SIA77KB958236
@@bigclivedotcom That may be why it doesn't come up under their model list, plus real Sinotimers do not use an "O" in the name, they use a graphic to represent the "O" www.sinotimers.com. But either way the astronomical function is a big plus for a lot of uses.
How about official sommertime / wintertime together with astronomical adjustment ?
I watched this at 1:41am, what are the odds. (Quite high actually, birthday paradox.)
Hi Clive, I don't normally make silly comments when very rarely slip ups are made in broadcasts but being a member of a voluntary service where an ability to plot positions on an admiralty chart is a requirement I noticed you started your demo of setting up the TM623 you entered your [Lat/Long] by setting [54 N] it should be {54.2361 degree N] after correcting yourself but you then totally forgot to enter the [LONG] setting which is [4.5481 degree W] for the Isle of Man. You then stated, thats how you set the Lat / Long. Sorry for being picky Clive but it was the only thing I could find wrong with your broadcast and at the same time thank you for some very interesting video's
But does this device even have a longitude setting, or does it simply use the latitude to calculate the sunrise/sunset seasonal variation to be added to the manually entered times?
Nice idea.
Probably not Y3K compatible.
Not even Y2100 compatible!
@@RedwoodRhiadra Lithium should wear out first.
@@johndododoe1411 Batteries can be replaced.
Do you think that the screw terminals that are across the battery could be designed to connect to something to monitor the battery voltage rather than a reset line? I also saw an unused via on the LCD ribbon cable the said "res", I'm guessing a reset feature that was not populated..maybe?
why the normally closed does not work? thanks
Perhaps those terminals that you shorted aren't for reset, maybe they're for connecting an external Li-Ion cell (for areas where mains power might be more intermittent)?
It says they're for reset in the manual.
@@bigclivedotcom OK, as you said it's an odd system then. Cheers.
I bought one of these about 3 years ago, but I could never get it to work. Maybe it didn't work well with places with southern latitudes.
Clive, could you show how to make a UVC 11W germicidal (mercury vapor) battery operated? perhaps by modifying the ballast that comes with it , it runs from 120V AC
im doing this myself already, www.eleccircuit.com/fluorescent-light-by-6v-power/
Why no reverse engineering of the small board? That looked interesting as well.
Those controls drive me nuts. Would have to dig out the instructions every time to make a change.
Maybe the relay is where it is because the 24V supply rail can actually go up to 36V (as you measured it) when the relay is OFF ?
Could that eventually damage something on the relay ?
Btw, absolutely love the amplification printouts (pictures) and the chance you give us of reverse engineering the boards.
Tks!
Your streetlights turn off at 1 AM?
They do here.
1AM, that’s shear luxury, ours go out just after midnight...
It’s done for three reasons: primarily to save money (the local authorities now get less money from central government), 2 to save energy, and 3 to reduce light pollution that affects viewing of the night sky.
Dave Micolichek - the major brands now primarily sell cordless vacuum cleaners.
Dave Micolichek - you first mentioned vacuum cleaners! 🤣
These are the astro timers we use. A tad more expensive but very reliable. uk.rs-online.com/mobile/p/din-rail-time-switches/6868647/
The position (and the opperation) of the 'reset' terminals is out-right dangerous. Why not put a small button on the top?
Look in your paypal for a beer from me. Not much but a token gesture to say thanks for info I was desperately seeking. What a brilliant video.
Thanks. It's appreciated.
@@bigclivedotcom Particularly helpful was the info regarding the reset terminals going back to mains via the capacitative dropper. I will be mucho careful round those terminals!
I'm currently looking into having a UK exit sign of my own. The only
issue i'm having is figuring out a way to convert or transform the power
difference and all that so i can have the sign be on aka plugged in,
all the time like it's supposed to be. I live in the US so the power is
different here vs the UK. If you or anyone else can help with this, i'd
be forever grateful!! i have no clue what i need in terms of equipment
or knowledge of uk exit signs to carryout something so big. thanks in
advance.
The DIN rail mounting means this thing is intended for switching entire circuits in a consumer unit or similar?
Yes in buildings and residential complexes that are large enough that you have one or more circuits dedicated to outdoor lighting, signage illumination, etc.
The DIN rail mounting allows it to be used in an industrial control panel as well. There are lots of DIN rail mounted devices such as PLCs which would probably never be used in a consumer unit, but are quite common for industrial control use.
Damn, that's exactly what I would have needed half a year ago. Are there better quality ones somewhere?
You can get pro units, but they are often very expensive.
Why are there always unpopulated capacitors? Is there an ongoing battle between board designers and manufactures over how many capacitors a circuit really needs?
It's a mixture of allowing positions for extra components "just in case" since it's much easier to add them during design than fudge them in later. There's also the issue of capacitor reliability. On modern designs the tiny surface mount capacitors are very prone to stress failures resulting in rogue resistance or shorts.
"Where's that other diode?"
Me: *Hollering at the screen*: "LOOK AT YOUR PHOTOS!!"
Yeah, that was a little maddening.
So is the internal lithium cell constantly being trickle charged? Isn't that bad for that kind of cell?
Some coin cells are - will have a part number starting with LIR for Lithium Ion Rechargeable.
We did not really see the type of cell did we? There are rechargeable ones and then the "regular" single use ones.
internal might be a nimh , as they are used in many things like this , and yes constantly trickel charged usually at c/20
Surely you could have location and time data pulled from GPS rather than having to set it. You've already got the DC supply anyway. If you can't get a reliable GPS signal (understandable, it's a very noisy environment!) Then have a port for an external antenna or other location and time reference like a smartphone.
Hell, if you are using a smartphone for reference, why not just have it connect via Bluetooth for initial setup and subsequent setting of timers
W00t?! Is 01:41 (HH:MM) Morning??? isn't that NIGHT??
Set the timer to switch on and off during your live stream controlling some of the led lights
No way to set longitude on the 'latitude longitude timer' then? 😊
Longitude won't affect the time, but latitude will
wirdy1 That’s what the ‘time’ setting does
Longitude will make a difference.
East and West positions in a time One can be significant. Particularly in Europe.
Hasn't got a correction for Fahrenheit degrees of lat or long either. 2 demerits.
@@MartinE63 Ha ha, yep, it was the sellers description.... this thing beats a sextant & tables for latitude.... but John Harrison would be seriously unimpressed at 1 min/month accuracy for measuring longitude 😊.