[time-nuts] Which First GPSDO to buy?

Joseph Gray jgray at zianet.com
Sun Dec 14 18:48:40 EST 2014


I don't mean to "one up" Chris, but if you are looking for
inexpensive, I have bought the same Pro Mini from this seller for
$2.58. Like Chris says, you can't buy the parts this for this.

And if you need the 3.3 VDC version: http://www.ebay.com/itm/191182699659

I bought six of the Pro Mini's from this seller and every one tested
OK. I have also bought other items from this seller. I have no
complaints.

One thing to be aware of when looking for the Pro Mini boards. There
are at least three slightly different versions. At least one of them
has the serial programming pins on one end reversed. The board that
Chris and I have linked to are the exact same thing that SparkFun
sells. I believe it is the version 2.0 board. You can recognize it not
only by the serial programming pinout, but it also has the two pairs
of extra holes next to the chip. Those are A4/A5 and A6/A7.

Just as an aside, although it is often true that many of these Chinese
vendors sell ripoff copies of things, in this case, the Pro Mini
design is open source hardware, so it is legitimate for the Chinese or
anyone else to make and sell them.


Joe Gray
W5JG


On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Chris Albertson
<albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's not worth making a PCB, not when you can buy the whole thing already
> assembled for $3 with free shipping.  I use these just as if they where a
> single chip and put them in a socket.  See eBay 141505833625 as an example.
>   Those holes are in 0.1 inch centers so you can figure out the size. (I
> get 1.3 inches long.)  direct link
> <http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARDUINO-PRO-MINI-Nano-Pro-Mini-atmega328-Compatible-Nano-5V-16M-/141505833625?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20f267aa99>
>
> I'll write up what I built.  It would be good to see the range of these.  I
> tried to make mine as simple an low cost as possible without regard to
> anything else.  Just to find the bottom line.  I doubt I would have met
> that gaol by using a bare AVR chip.  That is NOT simple because it requires
> so much more skill from the builder and with an entire working Arduino
> selling for $3 how much could you save?  Actually the chips on that $3
> board cost more than $3. (I don't even see how shipping from China can be
> that cheap.)
>
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Patrick Tudor <ptudor at ptudor.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > On Dec 13, 2014, at 9:47 PM, Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Actually I've added  some features to it like a 2 line by 16 character
>> LCD
>> > display and some status LEDs.  And I can log data to a computer via a USB
>> > cable so it is easy to plot data and it is using my more expansive mast
>> > mounted timing antenna.
>>
>>
>> Just in case any of you like reading Arduino code, for fun or functions to
>> copy-and-paste,
>> the code for my PCB that combines an ATMega328p with an Adafruit GPS and
>> 16x2 LCD to display GPS info as it sends the PPS out the DB9 DCD is at
>> GitHub.
>> It's not exactly, say, measuring oscillator cycles (yet... ) but it's
>> perhaps
>> a good introduction for someone who's never ever before used anything
>> Arduino.
>> (And now that I've done more PCBs with Cypress and FTDI chips, I wish I'd
>> put
>> that straight on my board instead of as a future daughterboard, but,
>> feature creep.)
>>
>> https://github.com/ptudor/jemma-clock
>>
>> PT
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>
>
> --
>
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California
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