4 ms·
AC clocks can sync their motors to the grid frequency, making it another perfectly valid mechanism of counting time. The grid frequency is very consistent.
by ultrarunner 4y ago
AC clocks can sync their motors to the grid frequency, making it another perfectly valid mechanism of counting time. The grid frequency is very consistent.
- bob1029 4y agoThe operators can even intentionally speed up or slow down the grid by small amounts to re-align the # of expected cycles over periods of time. Some prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24602162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24602162
- xxs 4y ago>The grid frequency is very consistent. This is not true. It does change a bit under heavy load and the req. to keep it constant are far from perfect. There are timers that use the AC freq. but they are far from precise compared to a quartz crystal oscillator ones. A low effort [0] stackexchange search. [0]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/57878/how-precise-is-the-frequency-of-the-ac-electricity-network https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/57878/how-pr...
- postalrat 4y agoIt looks like they do compensation for fluctuations. If done property it could basically be as good as the clock on your phone and never need to be set.
- ultrarunner 4y agoI don't exactly keep up on these things, but at one time off-peak frequency compensation was done specifically to keep AC-synchronous clocks accurate. I wouldn't be surprised to find that's not really done anymore.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]