2) MSF ("radio controlled") or possibly DCF (German) if the signal gets this far.
3) Mains powered, no wall wart.
3 is a particular bugbear. I have spacers (small blocks of wood) on the bed legs so that they slide past 13A sockets with no possibility of donging a plug. However, lumpy wall warts would require enormous spacers to guarantee that the bed could not slide on the wooden foor and damage the wallwart and socket.
I know *why* manufacturers like wallwarts but I don't.
This is for the kids - I use my spartphone, but for them I'd like a couple of "proper" clocks.
I literally have been all over the internet and I cannot find anything that isn't crap... Surely somewhere?
Under the terms of your definitions below probably not although you might be able to find one second hand.
They shouldn't be and you can get ones with a permanent backlight.
DCF gets to me in North Yorkshire OK.
One way out would be to buy a third party PSU with a conventional mains plug.
I think the closest you will come to your spec is something like
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or
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And swap the PSU for something that will fit where you want it. Otherwise scour the junk shops and car boot sales for an ancient one that dates from the era when integral mains PSUs were common. Not sure I would recommend it for a childs room though with mains inside.
My parents have a mains one based on Nixie tubes that was hand built from 7400 series chips salvaged from old ICL1900 boards. It still works even now but I wouldn't ever want to leave it on overnight.
Or maybe one with no display and it just talks instead. I'm not sure why one needs it mains powered. Batteries last for ages with the modern pietzo alarm sounders in my experienc, and with time only announced at button time no annoying light on all the time. Brian
Obviously "decent" is a matter of opinion and I much prefer (for home, not travel) a battery-operated MSF clock with proper hands. Mine is still going after what must be about thirty years continuous use.
My late father had something that fitted those features but that was
10+ years ago....
I think it's 2 & 3 combined that will give you problems. Do you
*really* need 2 for the kids? Wouldn't battery/capacitor backup of time surfice?
If you can drop 2 have a look at what the larger supermarkets have to offer. Walking past the relevant shelves shows boxes of things that could match 1 & 3 but I haven't looked *that* closely. Argos have a number of likely looking things as well. You may find that some will have feature "4) AM/FM radio" as well.
On Wednesday 13 November 2013 08:55 Martin Brown wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Not bad - thanks.
That might be the most practical option - at least until I'm up and running at home, in which case electronics project #1 will be to make some clocks that I deem "decent" with AVR controllers :)
I have a large LED one - characters 4" - which allows me to read it easily with no specs. Mains with built in PS. Modified it to drive a relay which switches on the sound system in the bedroom. Works a treat. Only problem is no battery backup and it isn't 'radio controlled' But is mains locked so keeps time well enough - it never needs adjusting.
I keep suggesting to my wife that I'll buy her one of those alarms with big bells on the top, but no hammer. I think they use an electronic sounder. The good bit is that to silence them you have to press a button between the bells, but if you touch the bell you get a shock. It may actually wake her up enough to get up on time!
Alternatively one of those that jumps off the bedside cabinet and runs away, so you have to get out of bed to switch it off.
As I think you can tell, getting her out of bed is not easy! She is definitely not a morning person.
The LED (VFD) vs LCD issue has been an obsessive detail of mine for some time. IMO, to summarise, an alarm clock should have a red LED display.
This is not totally capricious. Red is the colour that you can most easily read in the dark without your eyes having to adjust too much. So a dim red LED display is optimal for an alarm clock that you want to read in the wee small hours.
By contrast, most LCD displays have a back-light that has to be over-bright in order to read. It's a bit like sleeping with a torch shining in your eyes. If you switch the backlight off - you can't see the display. If you have the backlight on, the room will not be dark.
All smart phones are the same - the backlight must be on to read the display - so they're just as crap as LCDs (for this purpose).
Add to all the above, my desire for a digital FM tuner and you may conclude that I have collected a pile of failed annoying effing rubbish over the last few years.
I suspect that there is one factory in China that make digital FM tuners and that they are designed to supply power/voltage/something to a standard LCD display.
All that said... for a tenner you can get:
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Comes with a wall wart - but the wart is the same size as a standard plug and won't annoy you too much.
What will is the piss poor radio reception and the horrible speaker. And the time will not sync with anything.
There is a more expensive option (from Philips), but I think the use the same board as the AJ3115. This is it:
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But I think it is the same FM tuner. For me, a problem, maybe not for you.
My next plan is to upgrade/hack the components of the 3115.
If that doesn't work I'm going to start on the Raspberry Pi and build the bl'dy thing myself. Internet Radio, NTP etc
Easy to solve. I have a Clock radio with an LCD display. I piece of amber filter (stage lighting type) over the display allows me to see the time at night without lighting the ntire room.
Not convinced red is the most easily read colour to use for characters in the dark. Otherwise motorway signs etc would be red? It may be the most restful colour to use in a dark bedroom, though. Historically red or green LEDs were the cheapest. Blue came later and was more expensive. 'White' later still and the most expensive.
Not really relevant to alarm clocks, but the way your eye works means that if you can see a red light at all, you know what colour it is. This isn't true of other colours. This was the reason for slecting red to mean danger on railway signals.
I suspect that the reason older LED clocks used red was the cost, and, to start with, the availability. Before LEDs, discharge tubes were used in a variety of colours, but mostly neon orange.
I find reception of the MSF time signal difficult where my bedside clock is located. The next clock I get will use either the FM RDS, Internet Wifi or DAB time signals.
I think my Toppy PVR meets your criteria! (It gets a Freeview Time signal.)
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