[time-nuts] Has anybody checked this? GPSDO in kit

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Sun Oct 23 11:52:57 EDT 2016


On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 15:32:33 +0200
Giuseppe Marullo <giuseppe at marullo.it> wrote:

> I am puzzled about what to do, still the total cost of it for a OXCO + 
> GPS(unit with antenna) + control mcu is 67usd, I doubt I could find 
> anything like this for a cheaper price new.

Yes, it's cheap for a kit, but it is not that cheap if you want to be cheap. :-)

You can get GPS modules for as low as $5 on ebay (these are new),
a uC board for another $10-30 (even cheaper on ebay) and a quite good
OCXO for $10-30, also from ebay. A few wires, a bit of programming and
you have an GPSDO that beats the progrock. So, by buying the right stuff
you can stay below $30 and have something that will get you a long way
for experimenting.

Just for the fun of it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STM32F030F4P6-ARM-CORTEX-M0-Core-Mini-System-Development-Board-5V-3-3V-/371769616187?hash=item568f32273b:g:seAAAOSwXeJYCx63
$1.40
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MCP4725-I2C-DAC-Breakout-Development-Board-12Bit-Resolution-/401209928223?hash=item5d69f9aa1f:g:j5gAAOSw34FVH5b1
$1
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aircraft-Flight-Controller-w-Ublox-NEO-6M-GPS-Module-for-Arduino-APM2-/182318966076?hash=item2a730ea53c:g:QuoAAOSwOVpXc3K~
$5.04
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-USED-ISOTEMP-OCXO-143-141-10-MHz-5V-SC-CUT-Square-Wave-Crystal-Oscillator-/331997554003?hash=item4d4c98a553:g:w~sAAOSwCGVX~g24
$16

Total cost: ~$25 including shipping and all but the OCXO are new.
You will need programmer for the uC board, if you don't have that, change
the uC board for an STM32F0DISCOVERY board:
http://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/STM32F0DISCOVERY

Of course, any "real" GPSDO will beat this one by orders of magnitude
in phase noise and stability, but they are also much less fun to build :-)


			Attila Kinali
-- 
Malek's Law:
        Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.


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