Len Bayles’ TeenyChron project is a clock that pulls the correct time from a NTP server using a TS-7400 single board ‘puter, a Garmin GPS module, and dual display boards.
The genesis of this clock stems from one of my other hobbies, Ham Radio. I wanted a reasonably accurate clock that would display both local and UTC time on a large LED display. Everything I could find missed the mark by at least one feature. So I set out to design a clock with the above features, and also with the additional feature of being a stratum one NTP time Server, that is synchronized to a GPS’s pulse per second (PPS) signal.
At the heart of the system I am using a small single board computer based upon an ARM processor running Linux. I actually purchased the board in 2006 for another undertaking that is still in my long list of projects. The TS-7400 Computer-on-Module is built and sold by Technologic Systems. In the configuration I bought the SBC I paid $155 for a single unit. Mine has 64MB of RAM, 32MB of Flash, a battery backed up real time clock (RTC), and runs a 200Mhz ARM processor. I’ve configured the board to boot and mount a file system from a 2Gig SD card. I love this board! It runs a full version of Debian Linux. To date, every standard software package I’ve loaded complies and runs without any trouble.
Very complete documentation on Len’s TinyChron site. Extremely cool!
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