Ice Tube Clock GPS
posted Jul 29th 2010 6:15am by Devlin Thynefiled under: clock hacks, gps hacks
Our favorite Soviet-Era display that found its way into a present-day kit now displays time from orbiting satellites. A GPS module patched into an Ice Tube Clock with modified firmware will be able to provide a satellite-synced time. The firmware, modified by yours truly, parses the GPS module’s NMEA RMC sentences for the time and date information and then updates the clock’s time and date. Fun was had making sure the alarm went off at the correct times when the time was updated by the GPS. Overall, it was a fun project and we look forward to seeing additional Ice Tube Clock hacks.
Nice job, but wouldn’t it have been cheaper, easier, and more practical/accurate to sync up with an atomic clock? I seem to recall HaD running a simple project that used one of the atomic clock radios; the module only cost something like $10 and was exceptionally easy to interface with.
Bonus points for style using GPS, but certainly a downside to this build is that it won’t work unless near a window with a clear view of the sky.