Tindie

Name: Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF
SKU: 17605
Price: 13.90 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.00 (1 reviews)

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF

(1 Review)

60kHz or 77.5kHz Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit with tuned Antenna for WWVB (US, Canada) MSF (UK) and JJY60 (Japan)

Designed by Universal-Solder in Canada

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 1

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 2

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 3

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Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 6

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 7

Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] DCF77 WWVB MSF 8

2022-01-26T13:19:06.148Z-canaduino atomic clock receiver module DCF77 60kHz 2.jpg

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2022-01-26T13:19:06.148Z-atomic clock receiver V3 schematics.png

2019-08-01T15:32:14.205Z-atomic_clock_receiver_canaduino_dcf77_wwvb_msf_6.jpg

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60kHz or 77.5kHz Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit with tuned Antenna for WWVB (US, Canada) MSF (UK) and JJY60 (Japan)

What is it? CANADUINO® Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] is available as 60kHz version for the reception of WWVB in North America, MSF in England, and JJY60 in Japan, and also as 77.5kHz version for …

What is it?

CANADUINO® Atomic Clock AM Receiver Kit [V3] is available as 60kHz version for the reception of WWVB in North America, MSF in England, and JJY60 in Japan, and also as 77.5kHz version for the reception of DCF77 in Middle and Western Europe. The receiver module is built around the fantastic receiver chip from MAS (Finland), comes with 4 status LEDs, a voltage controller, and CMOS buffer outputs for inverted and non-inverted signals.

We are sure this is the most sensitive, reliable and versatile module of its kind available today. This said it will be the perfect receiver for your own atomic clock projects. With the super-wide supply voltage range of 2-15V, the additional inverted output, and the 10mA output current capability will it also be the perfect choice for retrofitting.

Crystal, Antenna and Header are not factory assembled and need soldering (as seen in the main picture).

This is in the kit:

CANADUINO® Atomic Clock AM Receiver Module [V3]
Custom 60.003kHz or 77.503kHz crystal
Fine-tuned 60kHz or 77.5kHz loop stick antenna
Male pin header 10 pins

Why did we make it?

We designed the first version in 2016 when we needed some of these modules for our own projects and quickly figured out that there is just nothing available (anymore). The 2nd version was developed in 2018 following the wishes and requirements of many of our customers. The brand new (current) version 3 was released in summer 2021 and brings some more upgrades to the design and a slightly smaller footprint. We are the only manufacturer that offers Atomic Clock Receiver modules specifically designed for microcontroller applications.

What is your advantage?

Other brands discontinued their atomic clock receiver modules already years ago, but the demand is still there. Anything that is still available is super-low cost and made for cheap desk and wall clocks. Our modules are designed with developers and professional products in mind. The CANADUINO® module has an additional inverted output, for easy retrofitting in existing equipment. It comes with status LEDs that can be completely disabled to save power for mobile applications. It operates in a wide supply voltage range of 2-15V and delivers high-current capable (max. 20mA) outputs with 3.3-5V logic level compatible signals.

Important information:

Before you start with your project, we highly recommend you to read the Wikipedia article about WWVB (Fort Collins, Colorado) or DCF77 (Mainflingen, Germany) time signal.

Interesting projects:

Andrew Hooper’s WWVB clock Arduino project on GitHub.

Benjamin Russel’s AVR-ASM-WWVB-Atomic-Clock on GitHub.

The crazy "Arduino DCF77 Analyzer Clock MK2" from 'oliverb' on Hackster.io

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Quantity	Price
1-2	$13.90
3-9	$13.95
10+	$12.50

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (5.00)

Documentation: (5.00)

Shipping: (5.00)

Communication: (5.00)

Alexander | July 16, 2022

Awesome little board

I've always been interested in radio and timekeeping. I'm an amateur radio operator, and we often tune in WWV (or here in Canada, CHU) to tune and test our radios and antennas. They broadcast the time using both voice and data in the HF range. However, there is another more powerful and much simpler system, run by many countries around the world: longwave time! WWVB in the US broadcasts on 60kHz(!) with an effective radiated power of 50kW, covering most the US during the day and propagating all over at night. Japan and Germany also provide longwave time signals on different frequencies (so make sure you order the right version of the kit for your particular region!).

Soldering the kit was easy (and it coincided with my switch to lead-free soldering, so this was a good test). I got it hooked up to a random Arduino I had laying around. There's a few different implementations, and of course you can implement a basic library from scratch, but for a quick test I just grabbed one of the suggested projects and stripped out all the RTC and display code, to just the bare decoding and serial display code. During the day where I live, it's a bit marginal (though this is expected) but during the night the reception is quite good. I was able to decode the time and date easily!

This is how all those "atomic" self-setting clocks work. It's kind of funny that they call themselves "atomic" as of course there is no atomic clock inside them; rather, they are just picking up WWVB which is calibrated by an atomic clock. But, the uncertainty is quite low, and this board would be great in any project that needs reliable time data but doesn't have room or power for a constantly running GPS module. The chip this uses (the MAS6180C) consumes well under 100uA when actively receiving and decoding. It has a convenient power-down pin, which drops the consumption to 100nA when activated. Of course, as the seller suggests, if you need it to be low-power you need to remove the LEDs, as they draw more current than the rest of the circuit! But they are great for debugging, and to see if it's outputting data or not.

Remember that in consumer products which use this type of chip, the designers have done all the hard work of carefully placing the antenna, and optimizing their code to get the best results. As this is just the receiver module, *you* now need to do a bit of work to position the antenna correctly, ensure it's away from high-speed digital circuits, etc. But with a bit of care you can get excellent results. Very cool board, and great fun too!

Response from Universal-Solder | July 16, 2022

Thank you for the nice review. BTW, the LEDs do not have to be "removed" to turn them off. There is a jumper "LED" on the board. Just cut the trace between the pads to turn the LEDs off. A drop of solder, placed between the two pads, will turn them on again if needed.