Jump to content

German / Polish Timegrapher


Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Klassiker said:

which has apparently been on the market for a while. I don't think it has been mentioned before,

Notice in their tax the reference to the new model? Then notice the model number is nine? In 2010 I did a lecture of every single timing device that I can find. I didn't list every single device it was more of like this would be one company one device. Witschi would be one company and I didn't list all the devices. So at that time because I'm just now looking at my presentation was model eight.

I suppose this brings up I wonder if there was a model one at one time?

 

6 hours ago, Kalanag said:

This seems to be very similar in terms of function and price (made in the USA):

I'm not sure they exactly compare because.   The first one mention has a graphical liquid crystal screen with menu choices you don't need a user's manual to run at the other one is a bit confusing without the manual. Then to really get it to work you need the software and a PC. But in the US the Microset is really loved by the clock community. Especially as I said when you toss in the software

so becomes sometimes hard to compare timing machines. It also is interesting if you look at all the various countries contributions to machines some of them are quite interesting. I believe even the Russians made a timing machine or two who just hard to find.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

But in the US the Microset is really loved by the clock community.

I saw this for the first time in the post the other day.  Since I added clocks to me list of challenges, I find that I spend a lot of time regulating (especially 400 day clocks)--a real pain.  So I started working on designing my own timer using an arduino and the acoustic sensor I designed for watches.  But, after seeing the Microset, I am thinking that a homebrew is not worth the effort.  That is really a great price IMO for the device and beatbook.  Still pondering...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I saw this for the first time in the post the other day.  Since I added clocks to me list of challenges, I find that I spend a lot of time regulating (especially 400 day clocks)--a real pain.  So I started working on designing my own timer using an arduino and the acoustic sensor I designed for watches.  But, after seeing the Microset, I am thinking that a homebrew is not worth the effort.  That is really a great price IMO for the device and beatbook.  Still pondering..

When I was giving my lecture on timing machines the second time at a nawcc  meeting I had to be really careful when I got  to the Microset section in that did I mention this is a really beloved machine by people? That's because I found faults with the machine I don't think it's perfect and I find at least one thing very very irritating.

And it's actually mentioned in the book why he does it but I still think it's a flaw. If you are timing a watch the LED is flashing with each beat I think it makes a ticking sounds and there's a minor skipping it skips a beat? It skips the beat so it can update all the software and everything which with the microprocessor that shouldn't be an issue unless? I had a discussion with somebody else who seem to agree with me that well basically the Microset could be better. In any case every time it doesn't update it conceivably will skip a beat. So when you're timing a watch show here that skipping and I find it very irritating because I think there's a problem. I'm guessing when you doing clocks I think Emily really done one or two clocks with it you just won't notice.

Other minor concerns with the Microset it comes in versions some can be upgraded some cannot. On the outside they basically look identical. The inside they did not look identical pictures below of what their earlier one looks like in a newer version looks like. In any case if you're purchasing on eBay unless they show a picture of the startup screen you may or may not actually know which one you're getting. I think mine was being sold as a second edition and from my really fuzzy memory I think his two second editions the original one and the second one in the second one can be updated in the first one cat or something is there are some minor yes have to be careful

The other thing I really think with the modern microprocessor is a little bigger display it may be some words to explain what's going on sealed have to look at the manual. Probably if you use it all the time you know instantly what all the settings mean.

Oh and Microset isn't the only one making clock timers in the US there's another company called TimeTrax it's been around for a very long time has multiple generations of machines.

Then if you're thinking of building your own but maybe don't quite want to spend all the time and effort here is something relatively new that somebody else made.

https://mesterhome.com/timer/index.html

 

 

 

 

Microset updated.JPG

Microset original.JPG

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Then if you're thinking of building your own but maybe don't quite want to spend all the time and effort here is something relatively new that somebody else made.

Thanks for that! 

Regarding skipping a beat on the microset, yeah, I thought of that.  When you trigger a timer and wait for the STOP, you have some SW overhead that eats into the count of the next beat.  There are ways around this, however, for clocks I dont think it is an issue because the time frame is so long.  I wonder how the timegrapher solves this.  I know they use a Silabs 8051 running at 25Mhz, and most instructions are completed in one cycle, so you are likely to get a pretty good reading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I wonder how the timegrapher solves this.  I know they use a Silabs 8051 running at 25Mhz, and most instructions are completed in one cycle, so you are likely to get a pretty good reading.

The Chinese ones use that chip. I always thought it was just a plain Jane 8051 until you pointed out what it was.

The Microset is using a PIC processor and I think from memory the TimeTrax has a PIC processor but I think they obliterated their number on the part but you can tell by where the crystals connected. Then the other timing machines are using all sorts of other chips which she tends to have some pretty big impressive logic and there's I don't know what they're using in the newer machines though

in a discussion was somebody who likes atomic clocks. There's some play locally who likes to collect atomic clocks and were discussing the Microset and I was complaining about how it works. We kinda formulated a thought that they may be using an upper level language as opposed to programming in assembly language. Because in assembly language when you look at the even on a watch there is a water time in between the ticking 18,000 beats per hour that's five impulses per second and two running my current pic I believe that one microsecond instruction time may be a few more for a jumper something but you're looking at a lot of time it shouldn't be an issue unless you using some upper language C are not efficient which are doing.

That I coursers other ways to get around this as you're well aware you can make use your timers in the processor

For instance there's a magazine called circuit cellar ink in its early days was really a fun magazine. The used to have a design contest so I entered a couple of times. I made a pocket watch timing machine with a PIC processor. True it wasn't super fancy it just gave you seconds per day and I made heavy use of the timers.

Now true things become more complicated if you want to measure amplitude but? I'd have to go look at the manual I can't remember how the Microset does that another pretty sure they don't do it on the liquid crystal screen I think they need the PC software.

In any case I do think all these timers could have improvements. I had started to think about clock timer with maybe even a graphical display kinda like a watch timer. Definitely with a menu on the screen so you knew which are doing C didn't have to look at the manual. I'm sure if you use your timer every day you don't need the manual but you pick it up occasionally and it's you looking for the manual.

Then a course of using things like the Arduino nano relatively small and all kinds of nifty displays you can now get nice oled or even nice color graphical displays. The only thing I don't know with the Arduino is how fast it actually processes things versus if you wrote something in assembly language.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

The only thing I don't know with the Arduino is how fast it actually processes things versus if you wrote something in assembly language.

You can bypass the higher-level arduino code and write directly to the processor and get the maximum performance.  There is a lot of overhead in the arduino calls.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The older microset is using a PIC16C57 microcontroller with EPROM memory.  It needs UV light to erase and it probably not erasable mounted in the board, since it's not in a windows package.  But I'm not sure.  While I'm old enough I've been in labs where the UV erasers and boards with windowed chips were still around, I'm young enough to have never used them myself.  Everything was EEPROM. 

It's using the low cost RC oscillator version of the PIC16C57, which probably isn't accurate enough to time watches, but there is an external xtal on the board, maybe they use it for timing sampling?  The MCU runs at 4 MHz.

The newer one uses a PIC16F76, same type of MCU and supposedly still in production.  This flash based rather than EPROM and can be reprogrammed.  It runs at 20 MHz.

These are all ancient designs now days.  You can get a RP2040 with dual 133 MHz 32-bit Cortex-M0+ cores for $1.  

I think I could port the much fancier cross-correlation based algorithm tg-timer uses to one of these.  The big CPU user in tg-timer isn't the FFT for the correlation, it's the rank based peak finding code.

There's no need to program in assembly anymore to make something like this.  You don't even need to use C and could do this in micropython.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, xyzzy said:

While I'm old enough I've been in labs where the UV erasers and boards with windowed chips were still around, I'm young enough to have never used them myself.  Everything was EEPROM. 

I worked as a tech while working on my BS degree.  I would erase and reprogram these with source code for the Intel 4004.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

erase and reprogram

yes the fun days of keeping things erased under the UV light. took me a while to think about it 8031 with external EPROM or 8748 are the only thing is I erased.

Then I went to my first microchip seminar. They were introducing the MPlab with inexpensive programming tools. Then the 16C84 and no more UV light. then considering the subject in this discussion armed with my programming tools might ship and the deadline I took my idea made a circuit board submitted it to circuit cellar ink magazine for the design contest and got honorable mention. Not bad for my first program with a pic. It becomes interesting in this conversation because the first thing I ever made was a timing machine for pocket watches. Considering I don't have a PhD I'm not a electrical engineer competing in the design contest and getting honorable mention and 50 bucks is pretty damn good.

 

1 hour ago, xyzzy said:

It's using the low cost RC oscillator version of the PIC16C57, which probably isn't accurate enough to time watches, but there is an external xtal on the board, maybe they use it for timing sampling?  The MCU runs at 4 MHz.

iinteresting observation about the RC aspect. Looking at the tech sheet now and does look like it's RC except the crystal is in the right location for the crystal. It has a really nifty trimmer capacitor to adjust it very precisely. I'm too lazy to read the whole tech sheet but maybe you can use the oscillator for something else other than the programming.

2 hours ago, xyzzy said:

The newer one uses a PIC16F76, same type of MCU and supposedly still in production.  This flash based rather than EPROM and can be reprogrammed.  It runs at 20 MHz.

the other thing when you look at the newer is look at the circuit board look at all the optional stuff. It was the frustration I had a buying mind off of eBay and having thought you could upgrade them because you can upgrade basically the second generation not the first. So unless the machine is turned on and you can see the initial display them all look the same. The original one like mine is not upgradable all the other ones you can replace the chip or at least some of them.

On the other hand I almost never use the thing so I just goes into the collection of miscellaneous timing machines.

2 hours ago, xyzzy said:

These are all ancient designs now days.  You can get a RP2040 with dual 133 MHz 32-bit Cortex-M0+ cores for $1.  

I think I could port the much fancier cross-correlation based algorithm tg-timer uses to one of these.  The big CPU user in tg-timer isn't the FFT for the correlation, it's the rank based peak finding code.

There's no need to program in assembly anymore to make something like this.  You don't even need to use C and could do this in micropython

yes what I find interesting is today you get a nice color graphics display plug it into probably now considered ancient Arduino nano and have a pretty graphic demonstration up and running in no time versus those ancient days of individual components and wondering if anything is ever going to work. so the kids today building electronic circuitry although I suppose they don't do that anymore they probably just simulate the whole thing now why get your hands dirty. But still all the fun things you have the playfulness the day that she only dreamed about as a kid well ask you probably didn't even dream about it because we couldn't comprehend it.

on the other hand even though he of these really nice multi bit processors they can do just about everything in the universe sometimes it's nice to do in assembly language eight pin processor because a lot easier to make a circuit board for with assembly language. But that probably says I'm ancient old fashion.

But if you are making a handheld timing machine the Microset is obsolete just don't tell any of the people that have them that because I found they get really cranky about that. Today with everything you should build a make a really nice timing machine for clocks and/or watches. For that matter look at witschi I was looking at the software update for the machine at work and is running Windows CE. We says basically display is a little PC with something else probably doing the processing and the microphone or basically with the nifty stuff we have now you can easily make a handheld machine that's really nice and what the graphical display don't have to keep referring to the manual trying to figure out how to program the timing device and end up with a really nice display. I still think the graphical display for clock timing would be nice

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Considering I don't have a PhD I'm not a electrical engineer

PhD not required for this kind of stuff.  Wozniac had a BS, I think and Jobs did not get a degree and they built Apple.  A PhD is useful for teaching at the university and being an expert witness on patent cases, and writing books...

Nevertheless I give you honorable mention and will buy you a beer someday (or you may be the person on this forum that does not drink beer...I don't recall for sure).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...