A look at my Symmetricom GPSDO / 10MHz reference (OCXO + Furuno receiver)

[Confucian]

I got my simple 1 in 4 out 10MHz distribution working. The RF transformers are probably overkill but I found them at eBay auction: #251401324712 and could not resist.
Schematic attached and bare PCB at cost if anyone else is interested.

Finally got my distribution amps sorted, Thanks NivagSwerdna for the PCB's and the relevant info. Dont like MCX connectors so went SMA, I used single sided pcb and Lidl's Sardine tins to make screened enclosures.
 

[guido]

Contact made 

My UCCM unit is now talking to Lady Heather! I'm using an acient win98 PC with a real RS232 port and a max232 chip inbetween PC and UCCM.
Still need to finish the whole project someday...

http://www.ke5fx.com/heather/readme.htm

A big thanks to Mark, John and others for the program 

[enaxy]

THANKE soooooo muuuuuuch   

[ekyle]

Thanks so much for getting Lady Heather working with these units. This has to be one of the coolest apps ever! I'd rather stare at this than looking at supermodels.  It appears that the TCP server available only runs on Windows via a batch script. I found a way to use a Linux based TCP <> serial server that connects to a Lady Heather client. My intention is to embed a Raspberry Pi (Which also runs this new version of Lady Heather) into the box with the receiver and then run a client on a different machine. I downloaded "ser2net" from https://sourceforge.net/projects/ser2net/
Then I built it, installed it, then added a single line to it's config file: /etc/ser2net.conf
45000:raw:600:/dev/ttyUSB0:57600 NONE 1STOPBIT 8DATABITS XONXOFF LOCAL -RTSCTS
Ensure this port isn't blocked by any firewalls. I connect to it using the -ip=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX option in the heather.cfg file.

Currently I'm using a USB dongle on a laptop as a server. The dongle doesn't work very will with a Raspberry Pi. There is a lot of latency probably from the way it buffers the data. I plan on using the serial port on the Pi directly attached to the signals before the RS-232 converter on the receiver after disconnecting the data lines from the converter and ensuring that the levels are 3.3v, which is what the Pi is expecting.

[texaspyro]

Thanks so much for getting Lady Heather working with these units.

Currently I'm using a USB dongle on a laptop as a server. The dongle doesn't work very will with a Raspberry Pi. There is a lot of latency probably from the way it buffers the data. I plan on using the serial port on the Pi directly attached to the signals before the RS-232 converter on the receiver after disconnecting the data lines from the converter and ensuring that the levels are 3.3v, which is what the Pi is expecting.

Think that's cool?  I have added some touchscreen code to Heather and better support for small screens.  It's working very will with a PI + official PI touchscreen.  Here's a photo of a neat Beaglebone version running a 5" touchscreen.

[TiN]

Nuts, I want one now.

[texaspyro]

Nuts, I want one now.

The touchscreen support should work with any touchscreen that emulates a mouse (or you can also just use a mouse).   Touch the upper left hand corner of the screen, and an on-screen keyboard pops up for entering commands.  Or touch any of the "clickable" items on the screen and that item zooms to a full screen view... it's way cool...

The PI touchscreen display is very nice.   It spurred me to figure out how to get X11 to not put borders and title bars on the window so I can do a full-screen display and not waste precious tiny screen pixels to the X11 window manager window decorations. 

[Vgkid]

@ TXPyro
I haven't been keeping updated with this.
So you are the guy on the Time Nuts group. Nice work 

[NivagSwerdna]

Nuts, I want one now.

That's very fun.  Which screen is that?

[texaspyro]

Nuts, I want one now.

That's very fun.  Which screen is that?

I'm not sure... another person built that around a Beaglebone with an LCD cape.   I'm using the official Raspberry PI touchscreen.

[ekyle]

The touch screen is pretty cool! I decided that I'm just going to run an instance of Lady Heather on the embedded Raspberry Pi and then connect to it via a VNC client rather than just use the RP as a serial <> TCP server. That way, it can run without interruption and not have to use another computer. The direct serial port connection to the RP works much better than through a USB dongle. If I build another one, I may consider using a touch screen.

On another note, does anyone have a hi res scan of the Trimble version? I have one that works fine except that the status LEDs don't work. I'm wondering if there is a jumper or missing resistor on this one. I didn't see any damaged components. I'm just wondering if this was a "feature".

[texaspyro]

The direct serial port connection to the RP works much better than through a USB dongle.

I've had a lot of problems with cheap USB-serial converters on Linux machines.  The main issue that I see is you cannot set the baud rate.  I suspect the clone chips in them are not cloney enough.  All the ones with cloned CH3xx chips seem to have the problem.  The ones with cloned PL23xx chips seem to be OK on Linux, but not on Windows / macOS  with the "official" Prolific drivers... even early versions that supposedly don't check for clones.

Another minor issue with the USB converters on Linux shows up doing the auto-detect of receiver type.  This tries to collect 512 bytes or 3 seconds of data (whichever happens first) at each baud rate it tries.  With some Linux distros it can take longer than three seconds... which cannot happen unless the driver is doing something naughty that effectively stops or slows the system clock.

[LY1]

Hello,

I have this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/GPSDO-Symmetricom-Inside-GPS-10MHz-1PPS-GPS-Disciplined-Clock-GPS-Ant-Display-/172166437092?hash=item2815eb58e4:g:Ze8AAOSw1DtXFbR8 

Inside it has a

10Mhz output is working fine. When GPS have LOCK I have an output off 10Mhz.

1PPS output is not working. I do not get 1PPS signal when GPS LOCKs.

How I can get 1PPS signal?
Maybe I need something set via RS-232 and command line?
Or maybe my pcb board is fault?
Thanks for the replies.

[ekyle]

It's a pretty fast pulse. What are you using to "see" it?

[LY1]

It's a pretty fast pulse. What are you using to "see" it?

Hello,

I have tektronix 2465b. Enough or not this scope for 1PPS pulse watching?

[Macbeth]

You should easily see the pulse if you trigger for it. It's very narrow in the wider scheme, 20us pulse width IIRC. It should be 1PPS but could be set to PP2S (every 2 seconds).

[Tom45]

The pps pulse width is 50 usec on my unit.

If it is there on your gpsdo you should be able to see it if you set 20 usec/div sweep and trigger on rising edge at a level of a few tenths of a volt.

[ekyle]

It's 50 us on my unit as well. If you are running in "auto trigger" mode, you may not see it on older analog scopes.

[LY1]

The pps pulse width is 50 usec on my unit.

If it is there on your gpsdo you should be able to see it if you set 20 usec/div sweep and trigger on rising edge at a level of a few tenths of a volt.

Can you or anybody else add a photo how looks 1pps pulse? I can get it from my unit.

I think my unit is fault. (10Mhz I can see clearly, 78ns rite time impulse too). 

[Tom45]

Here is a photo showing the pps signal on my 2465. You should be able to see all of the settings I used. I adjusted the horizontal position over to the right a bit so that the leading edge of the pulse is visible.

This is a 2 second time exposure to show the pulse. In real time, the screen is blank except for the trace as shown that flashes briefly once per second.

[NivagSwerdna]

1PPS output is not working. I do not get 1PPS signal when GPS LOCKs.

If you look at https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/a-look-at-my-symmetricom-gpsdo-(ocxo-furuno-receiver)/msg934866/#msg934866 you will see the PPS from both the GPS receiver and the 1PPS from the GPSDO itself.  The GPSDO pulse is around 50us and the GPS is around 500ms; they both occur at the same time when all is locked.

I cant remember exactly but you might not get PPS from the GPSDO until is is fully locked.  What is happening to your status? 

[LY1]

Hello,

Thanks all for helping. Via RS232 I have used this (I think, because I have used a lot off command and I get 1pps working) command: REFerence:TYPE GPS|LINK or SYSTem:PRESet
Changed from Link to GPS and I have now 1PPS like in Tom45 post photo.

[enaxy]

Hi all.

Still wait for FAKRA antenna reduction and make labels to the panel. It will be completed. Thank you for this forum.

The box is from eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/331071040666?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Power supply is the Goobay Eco-Friendly 2250mA Switch adaptor. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Goobay+EcoFriendly+Universal+Voltage+Power+Supply+2250+Ma+Switchable+3+12+V+New&_itemId=311602598953&_trksid=p2047675.m4099     Disassembled and modified resistive divider on the 6V position to 6.2V voltage.

[LY1]

Symmetricom GPSDO 1pps signal

[digital_dreamer]

Think that's cool?  I have added some touchscreen code to Heather and better support for small screens.  It's working very will with a PI + official PI touchscreen.  Here's a photo of a neat Beaglebone version running a 5" touchscreen.

Now, that's cool.
Is that the 800x480 screen? Resistive or capacitance TP?

Now that I'm here, I got some issues. 

I've have had a Trimble 57964 board for a year now and have used it with OS X, okay macOS Yosemite (10.10.5), and connect via Terminal and a Keyspan (Now Tripplite) USA-19HS RS232 to USB adapter. No problems there.

With the release of support for the UCCM GPSDOs, I tried out Lady Heather on this board in WIN 7, using the same USB adapter. Cool. I used to use LH on other GPSDO boards some time ago. But, given that I stay mostly in macOS, I decided to try the x11 version of LH 5.00 and am not having success connecting. I'm using the precompiled version already in the directory.

I can connect via Terminal: screen /dev/tty.KeySerial1 57600
In Heather, I use -id=/dev/tty.KeySerial1 in the .cfg file or just type ./heather -id=/dev/tty.KeySerial1 (when in the directory).
All I get is a seeming hangup on connecting to the com port:

Code: [Select]

program:heather
chime_file:1
alarm_file:1
leap_file:1
sunrise_file:1
noon_file:1
chord_file:0
noiify_file:2
bell_file:1
read_config_file(name:heather  local:1  add:1)  path:./
Attempting to open config file(./heather.cfg):(./heather.cfg)
Reading config file:./heather.cfg
opening com device:/dev/tty.KeySerial1
read_config_file(name:heather  local:2  add:1)  path:./
Attempting to open config file(./heather.cal):(./heather.cal)
Reading calendar file:./heather.cal

Initializing memory...
Done...

opening com device:/dev/tty.KeySerial1The LED on the adapter stops flashing, so I know it's identified correctly.

Any debugging I can do here? Believe me, I've tried other ports, but this one is the only one in use. Everything else is /dev/ttyp0 on up.
I might as well mention that I'm not at all familiar with the x11 windowing system in OS X. Yes, I did install XQuartz, but beyond that I know nothing.

best regards and thanks for all your hard work on making this work for our GPSDOs.
MAJ