I’ll never be late again - Open Timecard Mini

Summary

The video script discusses the importance of accurate timekeeping in computers, especially in large networks. It introduces two products: the Time Card Mini and the G0 KK (Gawk), which use GPS to achieve time accuracy down to 0.03 seconds per year. These devices connect to satellites for precise time data and output it through a Raspberry Pi. The script also covers setting up a time server using these devices, addressing initial technical issues and achieving synchronization with public time servers. The result is a local time server with remarkable accuracy, demonstrating a fun and advanced solution for time synchronization.

Takeaways

• ⏰ Time synchronization is crucial for computers, especially in large clusters, where all machines must stay in sync.
• 🖥️ The Time Beat Time Card Mini and G0KK (Gawk) are specialized devices designed to provide highly accurate time synchronization for computers using GPS data.
• 📅 Most computers have real-time clocks, but they can drift by seconds per day, which can be problematic for precision applications.
• 📡 The Time Card Mini connects to satellites (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo) to get precise time data, which it relays to a Raspberry Pi or other systems.
• 📈 The SI T 5811 chip included in these devices can maintain time accuracy within one part per billion for up to 8 hours.
• 💻 The Ethernet connection allows the time card to be integrated into existing systems, sending time signals through the network without needing a new rack or system.
• 🕒 In a Linus Media Group project, the Time Card Mini was used to set up a precise time server, which was essential for syncing computers in a cluster.
• 🔄 The Raspberry Pi kernel used to run the time sync software had issues with simultaneous GPS serial and PPS data, but a fix is in progress.
• ⚙️ Proper setup can lead to nanosecond-level accuracy, with occasional minor offsets caused by the hardware and software configuration.
• 🔧 Although precise time synchronization is not always necessary, it's a fun and interesting project, particularly for those working with clusters or requiring high precision.

Q & A

Why is time synchronization important for computers?

Time synchronization is crucial for computers, especially when multiple computers need to communicate or perform tasks in sync. It ensures that all systems are working with the same time reference, which is essential for operations that require precise timing.

What is a real-time clock (RTC) and why might it not be accurate?

A real-time clock is a hardware clock found on computer motherboards that keeps track of the current time. However, it may not be highly accurate as it can drift by several seconds per day due to the inherent inaccuracies of the clock hardware.

How does the Time Card Mini help improve time accuracy?

The Time Card Mini uses a GPS chip to connect to GPS and other satellite systems like Galileo to receive very accurate time data, which it then outputs to a connected Raspberry Pi, significantly improving time accuracy.

What is the purpose of the u-blox M8F0 GPS chip on the Time Card Mini?

The u-blox M8F0 GPS chip is used to receive accurate time data from GPS and other satellite systems. It sends a pulse at the start of every second, which helps to synchronize the system time with high precision.

What is the function of the PCIe card mentioned in the script?

The PCIe card is used to provide power to the Time Card Mini. It allows for the addition of a powerful and accurate time server to existing infrastructure without the need for significant hardware changes.

Why did Linus Media Group set up a time server using the Time Card Mini and gawk One Mini?

Linus Media Group set up a time server to meet the precise time synchronization requirements of their Proxmox cluster setup, which needed time sync within about 5 milliseconds.

What is the issue with the Raspberry Pi's kernel code as it relates to the Time Card Mini?

The kernel code has an issue handling both the GPS serial connection (NMEA) and the PPS (Pulse Per Second) at the same time, which can cause instability. The Time Card Mini's manufacturer is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

What is the significance of the PPS signal from the GPS chip?

The PPS signal provides a highly accurate time reference, with the potential to achieve synchronization within nanoseconds, which is essential for applications requiring precise timekeeping.

Why might using a public time server as a primary clock source be problematic if the internet goes down?

If the internet goes down, a public time server as a primary clock source would not be accessible, potentially causing synchronization issues. However, the GPS chip would still provide accurate time data, though without the internet, the system would lose the ability to sync with the actual time.

How accurate is the time synchronization achieved with the Time Card Mini and gawk One Mini?

The time synchronization achieved with these devices can be within 10 nanoseconds, which is extremely accurate and suitable for high-precision applications.

What is the practical use of such accurate timekeeping for a typical user?

While most users do not require such precise timekeeping, it is essential for specific applications like scientific research, financial trading systems, or any system that requires highly synchronized operations across multiple devices.

Outlines

00:00

🕒 Importance of Time Synchronization in Computing

The paragraph discusses the critical role of time synchronization in computing, especially when managing multiple computers. It introduces two products: the Time Card Mini and the g0 KK (possibly pronounced 'gawk'), which are used to maintain accurate timekeeping. These devices connect to GPS and other satellite systems to provide precise time data. The Time Card Mini includes a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, a GPS chip (u-blox LEA-M8F0), and additional features like USB, SD card slot, and Ethernet for connectivity. The devices are set up to create a time server for Linus Media Group, which is necessary for their Proxmox cluster setup requiring time sync within 5 milliseconds. The video also mentions a minor issue with the pronunciation of the product name 'g0 KK' and the setup process involving connecting antennas for GPS reception.

05:01

📡 Setting Up GPS Time Server and Resolving Technical Issues

This paragraph details the process of setting up a GPS time server using the Time Card Mini and gawk One Mini. It covers the initial lack of GPS reception, which was resolved by plugging in the correct antennas. The video explains the configuration of the time server, focusing on primary and secondary clocks. The primary clock uses PPS (Pulse Per Second) from the GPS chip for nanosecond accuracy, while the secondary clock sources time from public servers like Cloudflare. The paragraph also discusses a technical issue with the Raspberry Pi's kernel code, which affects the simultaneous use of GPS serial (NMEA) and PPS connections. The video concludes with a successful setup of the time server, achieving synchronization within 10 nanoseconds, and a demonstration of syncing a laptop to the local time server. The host expresses enthusiasm for the setup, despite it not being a necessity, and encourages viewers to subscribe and share their thoughts.

Keywords

💡Time Synchronization

Time synchronization is the process of ensuring that multiple computers or systems are running on the same time. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of time sync across computers, especially in environments like server clusters, where even a few milliseconds of difference can cause issues. For example, Proxmox requires time sync within 5 milliseconds, making this concept essential for the setup described.

💡Time Card Mini

The Time Card Mini is a hardware device used to ensure accurate timekeeping by syncing with GPS satellites. The video highlights its role in providing precise time data to a Raspberry Pi system, making it suitable for creating a highly accurate local time server. The speaker focuses on this product's use in their setup at Linus Media Group for advanced time synchronization.

💡Real-time Clock (RTC)

A Real-time Clock (RTC) is a clock on a computer's motherboard that keeps track of time even when the machine is powered off. However, RTCs are prone to drifting, as explained in the video, where it's mentioned that an average computer's real-time clock can drift by several seconds per day. The Time Card Mini and other products discussed provide a more accurate alternative by using GPS-based time sources.

💡GPS Chip

A GPS chip is a component that communicates with global positioning satellites to get highly accurate time and location data. In the video, the u-blox Lea M8 F0 GPS chip is central to the Time Card Mini, helping the device retrieve accurate time from GPS satellites like Galileo and GLONASS, which is then used to sync time on the Raspberry Pi system.

💡PPS (Pulse Per Second)

PPS, or Pulse Per Second, is a signal emitted by GPS chips to mark the start of each second with extreme precision. The video explains that this pulse is used to synchronize time to the nanosecond level, a feature important for achieving the high accuracy needed in the Time Card Mini setup. The speaker notes that the GPS chip sends this pulse, which helps sync time down to a few nanoseconds or microseconds.

💡Proxmox

Proxmox is an open-source server management platform that relies on accurate time synchronization for proper functioning. In the video, Proxmox is mentioned as a key reason for setting up a time server, as it requires all connected systems to be within a 5-millisecond time sync. This highlights the importance of the Time Card Mini's precise timekeeping for server clusters.

💡NTP (Network Time Protocol)

NTP is a protocol used to synchronize the clocks of computers over a network. In the video, the speaker mentions using a local NTP server to sync their systems, and they configure Cloudflare's NTP server as a secondary time source. NTP is crucial in network environments to keep all systems running on the same time.

💡Cluster Computing

Cluster computing refers to a setup where multiple computers work together to perform tasks, often in data centers or for high-performance computing. In the video, the speaker explains that Linus Media Group was setting up a computer cluster and required accurate time sync between all machines, which is why they explored using the Time Card Mini and the G0KK (Gawk) for time synchronization.

💡Kernel Code

Kernel code refers to the core part of an operating system that manages system resources and communication between hardware and software. In the video, the speaker mentions an issue with the Raspberry Pi's kernel code affecting the time synchronization software, specifically when trying to use both the GPS serial connection (NMEA) and PPS simultaneously. This points to a technical limitation that is being worked on by the software developers.

💡Cloudflare

Cloudflare is an internet infrastructure company providing services such as DNS and NTP servers. In the video, the speaker configures Cloudflare’s public NTP server as a secondary time source for their local time server setup. This adds redundancy in case the GPS signal is unavailable or unreliable, ensuring that the time server stays accurate by using both GPS and internet-based sources.

Highlights

Time synchronization is crucial for computers, especially when coordinating tasks across multiple machines.

The Time Card Mini and the g0 KK are products designed to provide highly accurate timekeeping for computer systems.

Computer motherboards typically have a real-time clock that can drift, making external timekeeping devices valuable.

The Time Card Mini can maintain time accuracy to within 0.03 seconds per year.

The device uses a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and a GPS chip to sync with global satellite systems for precise time data.

It offers USB, SD card slot, DIP switches, GPIO pins, antenna connection, USB on-the-go, and Ethernet for connectivity.

The PCIe card is used to provide power to the Raspberry Pi, allowing it to function as a time server.

Setting up a time server at Linus Media Group was motivated by the need for precise time sync in a computer cluster setup.

Proxmox, a virtualization platform, requires time sync within about 5 milliseconds for cluster operations.

The Time Card Mini and g0 KK can be configured to use PPS from the GPS chip for nanosecond accuracy.

The device can also sync time with public NTP servers like time.cloudflare.com for a secondary time source.

MSI sponsored the video, offering back-to-school deals on a range of laptops, gaming PCs, GPUs, and more.

GPS antennas are required for the device to receive signals and maintain accurate timekeeping.

The device can achieve time accuracy within 10 nanoseconds, which is exceptionally precise.

There was an issue with the Raspberry Pi's kernel code that prevented simultaneous use of NMEA and PPS.

Time Beat is working on a fix for the kernel code issue to improve the device's functionality.

For now, it's recommended to use a public time server for major time sync and GPS for PPS to avoid issues.

The time server can sync time with devices on the same network, providing accurate local time.

While not necessary for all setups, the Time Card Mini and g0 KK offer a fun and precise way to manage time on a network.

Transcripts

as you can probably imagine time is very

important when it comes to computers you

want your computer to be in time

especially if you have more than one

computer say you have a thousand

computers and you want to like do stuff

across all of them well they better be

in time sync and it's not really a

problem that we have but when I saw this

product the time beat time card mini and

the other one in here this one called is

called the g0 KK I don't know if you're

supposed to call call it gawk I probably

should have asked them how to pronounce

it but it doesn't matter it was just too

cool to not check out I've never played

with one of these this guy right here

the gawk

one and this one as you could probably

guess is the time card mini you may or

may not be aware but basically every

computer on the planet I think I imagine

phones have them but definitely like

your gaming computer on its motherboard

will have something called a realtime

clock usually the clocks on computer are

not super accurate for example the

real-time clock in your average computer

will drift multiple seconds per day for

example this little add-on chip right

here can hold time down to 0.03 seconds

per year which is very accurate let's

focus on the time card mini for now

because the actual bones of these two

products are pretty much the same you've

got a Raspberry Pi compute module

4 we've got a little spacer board on the

back but this is the important part this

is the time teller right here you can

see the ublock Lea M8 F0 it's a GPS chip

so what this board basically does is

connects to GPS glow Nas Galileo

satellites gets very accurate time data

from them and then outputs it through

these pins to our little Raspberry Pi

and then we've got two little spots over

here for add-on modules these uh you can

put little chips on them and this chip

the SI T 5811 can hold one part per

billion accuracy for up to 8 hours in

terms of the rest of IO it has USB here

it's got an SD card slot here bunch of

dip switches primarily used for setup

you've got your connection points for

the raspy the full set of GPO pins for

the raspy which is super nice an antenna

connection USB on the- go connection two

type-c USBS and ethernet now you would

use this ethernet to well provide

internet to the Raspberry Pi and also to

send your time signaling out um as you

can imagine it's a little weird to be

plugging a computer into a computer

right this is a pcie card why would you

plug this computer into your other

computer the function of this is

literally just to give power it's

basically so you can add a very powerful

very accurate time server to your

existing infrastructure without having

to put like a a whole new rack Unit in

or like duct tape it to the side of your

rack or whatever aside from these just

being cool the reason I asked for them

was to make a Time server at Linus Media

Group for us the thing that kind of

sparked this idea is we were setting up

a cluster of computers using proxmox and

proxmox requires that the time sync be

within about 5 milliseconds you can

achieve that pretty easily by having any

local time server for instance most

routers will let you enable an ntp

server that runs on them which is what

we did and it worked totally fine but

you know it's me I want to do it like

fancy or silly and that's what we're

going to do with these do you think that

this I mean it just needs to provide

Power right I run the time card mini in

the gawk One Mini it's like time server

setion okay now I think I have to try

that I really hope this doesn't break it

I'd feel kind of bad if I broke it oh

look at that they're both blinking look

at that wow it works okay

we've got a Time server in the time

server can you see how this makes

perfect sense now it should be running

already you can see from the logs it's

connecting to cloudflare um that's an

ntp server a public time server uh that

I configure just as like a secondary

source usually you'd see a bunch of GPS

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below sorry wrong thing I mean I haven't

plugged in the antennas yet so let's do

that you can use basically any GPS

antenna as far as I'm aware I got these

ones on Amazon this is meant for a boat

and I needed to get an adapter cuz this

uses BNC connectors now I wonder will we

have GPS reception in here zero

satellites in view look at that 10

satellites in view ooh wah wa we woo all

right look at this we got our gawk one

oh look it's ripping dude nothing like

measuring your time in Nan seconds it's

a very in-depth config file you can mess

around with a lot of different settings

and some far more advanced than others

um but what we're most interested in is

the primary clocks and secondary clocks

primary clocks usually you set as your

most accurate source of time in our case

we're going to use PPS from the GPS chip

and that's one pulse per second PPS

stands for and basically Bally what's

happening is the GPS chip on the time

card is sending a little electrical

signal at the start of every second and

that's going to sink our time down to

like Nan seconds or micros seconds and

be very accurate then in the secondary

clock section we're getting our major

time which is like what time of day it

is just down to the minute or second uh

we're getting that from cloud flare

time. cloudflare.com wow look at

that hey I don't know I feel like

something's funky is going on with this

one

the thing that's strange is it's like

reporting to the

dashboard very

infrequently ooh look at our offset it's

terrible we have 5c

variants I don't know what to do boys

it's been a few days but we've got the

GPS antennas outside we've got them

hooked up and we've sorted out the

couple little issues we were running

into I worked out with the time beat

guys and now this all makes a lot more

sense and it isn't crashing anymore I

want to just give you guys a little bit

of background here on the Raspberry Pi

there's like an issue with the kernel

code that they use to run the time beat

software it doesn't like having the GPS

serial connection which we call nmea as

well as PPS at the same time and they

did admit to me it is kind of their own

fault because they wrote the code but

they are working on a fix but for now we

can't really do both at the same time at

least not on the newer version

this is the older version you can see

here I'm running this on the time card

mini you can see we're reading the major

time from the GPS chip and it's several

hundred milliseconds out which makes

sense and then if we look at our

PPS it's pretty accurate but it's also a

bit all over the place for the most part

we're

talking within 10 nond accuracy but then

on other times it's 14 or 45 nond out

which is still mindboggling accurate but

they were telling me on a proper setup

without this bug they usually within 1 2

3 NS at all times which is so so stable

generally they recommended to me to just

disable this nmea data and use a public

time server like time. windows.com time.

cloudflare.com as your major time Source

now you might have a problem if the

internet goes out because you're losing

your major time Source but the GPS chip

does still have that information and the

pulse per second should still stay

relatively accurate but generally if you

have downtime of your main internet you

probably have bigger problems let's sync

my laptop to it hey it worked look at

that look how accurate the time is if I

sync to this local time server or like

half a millisec out some of that is just

going to be the clock on this Mac

probably not being the greatest thing

ever but uh we're also syncing over

Wi-Fi but there you go we have a local

time server getting its data from GPS

and from public time servers our gawk

One Mini our very own generally pretty

much within 10 NS which is kind ofing

insane I like this thing it's not

necessary for us at all don't get me

wrong what for our cluster setup as long

as they're all synced to like a local

time server we have our router acting as

that it's got a pretty accurate Nick and

maybe it's not true to actual time but

as long as they all think that they're

on the same time it doesn't really

matter but this is just cool and I like

doing cool stuff like this and I like

sharing it with you so get subscribed

hit like and tell me what you think

about acurate time you probably don't

need it either but it is fun and not

that expensive if you buy the normal

version of this and build it

yourself bye