Good day folks. This is one of those things that just popped in my brain and doesn't serve much purpose other than to maybe learn something and get a good laugh out of it, so: I'm using a plug-in timer outlet to turn on some RGB LEDs at a specific hour. It's a cheap nasty thing, so the clock on this thing tends to run fast, that is, it's off by up to 5 minutes after around 2-3 months, so I have to go in there and turn it back again...not a big deal, since we're not talking atomic precision here, but still a chore. That got me thinking if I could do something about it.
I learned that AC-powered clocks usually get their sync pulse from the 50Hz frequency of the mains...to begin with, is this even true ? If so, I imagine the frequency of the outlet is not perfect at all times, of course, which causes the little clock to run fast. Makes me wonder why it's just this one though - I have like 6 other clock devices in my house which remain perfectly stable and never seem to go off...they probably have a clock chip or some dedicated oscillator (?) ? This got me thinking if I could somehow feed the timer with a stable frequency as well, instead of relying on the mains frequency....just a silly little project, since I KNOW there probably exist better quality outlets for this job, or even the DIY route of building my own using a micro, which I DID think of, but consider to be way overkill for this...or maybe not - actually, let's discuss that as well
I learned that AC-powered clocks usually get their sync pulse from the 50Hz frequency of the mains...to begin with, is this even true ? If so, I imagine the frequency of the outlet is not perfect at all times, of course, which causes the little clock to run fast. Makes me wonder why it's just this one though - I have like 6 other clock devices in my house which remain perfectly stable and never seem to go off...they probably have a clock chip or some dedicated oscillator (?) ? This got me thinking if I could somehow feed the timer with a stable frequency as well, instead of relying on the mains frequency....just a silly little project, since I KNOW there probably exist better quality outlets for this job, or even the DIY route of building my own using a micro, which I DID think of, but consider to be way overkill for this...or maybe not - actually, let's discuss that as well
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