Time synchronization ("Zeitgeber")

[Marc Gregoire]

I'm trying to accomplish the following, but I have no idea if this is possible with EIB. Any suggestions are welcome.

I want an EIB time-unit "Zeitgeber" that periodically put the correct time (with DCF77) on the EIB bus. I think Siemens has such a device. This time will be used to synchronize an MT701 display. I suppose that is possible?
I also want to use this time to show the time on a big LCD or other type of character display. How can I do this? I've looked around, but I didn't find any manufactures that create such an LCD display. Controlling such a character display is easily done with some kind of embedded processor with an i2c bus, for example a BasicStamp module or some ARM processor. But, making the EIB connection seems not trivial. Is there any way to connect such an embedded processor to the EIB bus, so that I can receive those time datagrams from the EIB bus, parse them and display the time on the display?


Kind Regards,
Marc

[OStein]

Theben has some EIB clocks ("OSIRIA" series)... check here (http://www.theben.de/english/e_prod_066.htm)

[Marc Gregoire]

Original geschrieben von OStein
Theben has some EIB clocks ("OSIRIA" series)... check here (http://www.theben.de/english/e_prod_066.htm)
Thank you for the information, these clocks seem really nice, but are way too expensive. The "cheapest" is around 1200 euro :(

[johan1957]

Hi Marc,

I have the same questions and bought the ABB FW/s timer. This
device puts the DCF 77 time on the EIB bus. I am experimenting with a Jung RCD raumcontroller and right now this display shows the time, so this works great. I am also looking for some EIB clocks to put in my house, but found the Theben clocks way too
expensive :-(
Greetings, Johan

[MarkusS]

I don't think that there are any other offers for eib-clocks than these Theben offers.

Several companies offer DCF77-clocks which can send the time to the eib - usually, this is the same clock with different labels.

The Elsner / Hager weatherstation (is this the right term?) has a DCF77-receiver, I think the new Theben weatherstation has one too.

Other option: Gira Homeserver. The Homeserver can poll te time from the internet (NTP), you can use this to sync any EIB-device and you can use this on the Homeserver in a visu to show the time.

Regards
Markus

[Marc Gregoire]

Original geschrieben von johan1957
Hi Marc,

I have the same questions and bought the ABB FW/s timer. This
device puts the DCF 77 time on the EIB bus. I am experimenting with a Jung RCD raumcontroller and right now this display shows the time, so this works great. I am also looking for some EIB clocks to put in my house, but found the Theben clocks way too
expensive :-(
Greetings, Johan
Those Jung raumcontrollers are a bit too big while the display is rather small. Also, I assume these work with a backlight? I wonder if those type of displays are confortably readable from a distance and from an angle?

Ideally, I want to find a solution with somekind of LCD display that doesn't really require a backlight but whose pixels illuminate themself. For example a display like you can see on the following page:
http://www.matrixorbital.com/product_info.php?pName=vk20425&cName=lcd-character-vfds

[Marc Gregoire]

Original geschrieben von MarkusS
I don't think that there are any other offers for eib-clocks than these Theben offers.

Several companies offer DCF77-clocks which can send the time to the eib - usually, this is the same clock with different labels.

The Elsner / Hager weatherstation (is this the right term?) has a DCF77-receiver, I think the new Theben weatherstation has one too.

Other option: Gira Homeserver. The Homeserver can poll te time from the internet (NTP), you can use this to sync any EIB-device and you can use this on the Homeserver in a visu to show the time.

Regards
Markus

Does this mean that there is no way to connect a BasicStamp or ARM or other embedded processor to the EIB bus to do my own processing, because controlling such a display like the one in my last reply is rather easy with such an embedded processor?

[MarkusS]

You can connect almost anything to the eib if you can handle the interface (BCU, RS232, USB, IP).

I'm not very proficient with programming and hardware designs (e.g. for this clocks you linked above), so I can't estimate if it is easy or complicated to connect such a device.

I think, there are some guys ("freaks") here (include me) who would be very happy if you could provide such a interface ;D

On the other hand, LED-based wall-clocks with integrated DCF77 are cheap (look at Conrad or ELV), so perhaps it doesn't make sense to spend many resources into implementing such a thing via EIB.

Regards
Markus

[Marc Gregoire]

I know these non-EIB LED clocks with DCF are pretty cheap, but ultimately, I wanted to use the same kind of display to display all kinds of messages with EIB. For example: a message could appear on the LED display saying that the EIB controlled water valve for the garden is still open. Another message could be saying that the hot-water boiler is currently switched on for 30 minutes and perhaps even display how many minutes remains until the boiler shuts down (kind of a "progress-bar"). The MT701 display for example is not suitable for this, because it doesn't allow for dynamic text and is not readable from a distance and angle.

Implementing such a display for displaying the state of EIB devices isn't that complicated, as long as you work with 1-bit objects. My solution would be to use a concentrator and connect the outputs of the concentrator to the I/O pins of for example a BasicStamp. Unfortunately, I have no clue about how to capture the time datagrams from the EIB bus.

Is there any free documentation available about making my own program for a BCU?

[johan1957]

Hi Marc,

the raumcontroller has a little display indeed, and mine has no backlight :-( I bought him on ebay. My plan was to use him as
a simple on/off thermostat for the CV heating, but that is not as easy as I thought, so now it is only a little clock with eight switches :-(
Also i would be very interested in some slave-cloks for EIB !

groetjes, greetings, gruesse - Johan

[MarkusS]

You can have a look at the Berker IQ. This *&)§?# (don't know the term for such a device) has a display which can show time, date and temperature AND 14 byte-text-objects, like the mini-infodisplay. Using this 14 byte-text, you can show almost any state in plain text as long as you have a device which can 14 byte-text-telegrams (like the Homeserver oder the HS Infoman).

Regards
Markus