Keeping OPII time in sync

[PaulD]

My OPII has a tendancy to lose time. I know I can go into the settings in PCAccess and do an automatic daily time adjustment up to plus/minus 30 seconds per day but this seems a rather crude way of trying to keep good time on the controller. Is there a way to tap into an official time sources such as time.nist.gov to pick up the correct time on periodic basis via internet? If there is, I have not discovered it yet.

 

[cornutt]

I'm not aware of any easy way to do it. If you hand-sync it using PC Access, then watch it for a couple of days, you can estimate the drift pretty well and then set the compensation parameter and it will stay pretty close. I've signed up to the developer program and one of the things I want to try is to write a PC application that will connect to the OPII periodically and sync it.

 

[pete_c]

Time relative to the Omni Pro II was a pet peeve of mine.

Time sync for me is being done by my HS box and a reoccuring event that Rick integrated into last beta of the HAI Omni Pro beta.

I'm very surprised that an NTP sync was never implemented by HAI.

On a similiar note I am upset that my car's time doesn't sync to the NAV GPS time as it recieves reoccurring position and time stamps. I manually (semi automatic) do this with the CarPC reading the time stamp and telling the car what time it is.

Today I use an NTP server connected to a GPS to sync all the machines on my home network.

 

[PaulD]

.... one of the things I want to try is to write a PC application that will connect to the OPII periodically and sync it.

I am anxiously awaiting the results.

 

[gatchel]

Today I use an NTP server connected to a GPS to sync all the machines on my home network.

I am interested. Do you have more detail on this.

 

[pete_c]

I put a GPS antenna on the roof next to my weather station. This is connected to a very old Trimble (military) dual serial port GPS. This GPS is connected to one PC (running 2003 Windows Server Standard) and using a program called Tardis. This PC is set up as an NTP server. All the PCs on the home network use this PC for time sync.

I actually implemented something similiar for a large Airline to sync up routers and switches internally. I was involved at the time with a Unix project relating to flight path vectoring. This application (used in towers) would sync itself locally to a GPS (very expensive - looked like a 1950's Cadillac). The GPS's were located at major airline hubs thruout the world. I liked the ability to use a GPS for internal time sync so took the idea home and to our regional HQ location. I put the GPS antenna on the roof of a 4 story building. I used old microwave coax cable that ran from the roof down to the basement server room and added an inline amplifier so that I could see about 4-5 birds. It worked and I believe its still being used today. (did it in the late 1990's).

 

[Steve]

.... one of the things I want to try is to write a PC application that will connect to the OPII periodically and sync it.

I am anxiously awaiting the results.

That would be easy if setting the time were available in the OmniLink protocol but I didn't see the ability to write it in there. If it was writeable any of the existing HA apps with an HAI driver could set the time. I currently do that with my Nuvo since the time on that is always going off. CQC just once a days resets the time on the GC. It's been perfect since I did that. Would be great to do the same thing with OPII.

So HAI, short of building in NTP, would it be possible to add writing the time in OmniLink???

 

[pete_c]

Ask Rick how he's doing it with HS plugin with legacy HAI protocal. Its been a couple of years now since its been implemented.

 

[jharrell]

NTP support cannot happen until they support a default gateway and DNS lookups in the Omni's TCP/IP stack, and I doubt that will happen anytime soon, probably not until an Omni Pro 3.

You can however set the time using the OmniLink protocol, here is the message from their docs:

SET TIME COMMAND
This message is used to set the time, date, and daylight savings time flag in an HAI controller.
Start character 0x21
Message length 0x08
Message type 0x13
Data 1 year (0-99)
Data 2 month (1-12)
Data 3 day (1-31)
Data 4 day of week (1-7)
Data 5 hour (0-23)
Data 6 minute (0-59)
Data 7 daylight savings time flag (0-1)
CRC 1 varies
CRC 2 varies
Expected reply ACKNOWLEDGE

I would do this in my event and temperature logging script that runs every 10 minutes on my WHS , but my Omni seems to keep accurate time on its own so I never bothered.

Perhaps their 5.7e POE touchscreen can get the time via NTP and then set it on the controller on a regular basis, anyone know?

 

[jharrell]

I just realized why my Omni keeps time on it's own so accurately. There is a feature in Web-Link that allows it to set the Omni time from the PC time everyday which I have turned on. Web-link is running on my WHS which is set by NTP.

So if you have web-link then its service can do this for you.

 

[PaulD]

I just realized why my Omni keeps time on it's own so accurately. There is a feature in Web-Link that allows it to set the Omni time from the PC time everyday which I have turned on. Web-link is running on my WHS which is set by NTP.

So if you have web-link then its service can do this for you.

Are you refering to WL2 or WL3? I have WL3 running on my WHS but I cannot find any feature that allows me to set the Omni time via WL3.

 

[edselrt]

[/quote] Are you refering to WL2 or WL3? I have WL3 running on my WHS but I cannot find any feature that allows me to set the Omni time via WL3.
[/quote]

Open WHS console. click settings, then HAI WL3
click data synchronization tab and put a check on "sync controller time with PC daily"
also, make sure your WHS is set to sync time with an internet time server.To do this, go to settings, click general, under date and time, click "change" then "internet time tab". Put a check on "automatically synchronize with an Internet time server".
I am using "time.windows.com" as my internet time server

edsel

 

[PaulD]

.... put a check on "sync controller time with PC daily"

edsel

Thanks. That is the step I was overlooking. Had all the rest already in place but I overlooked that tidbit.

 

[pete_c]

jharrell -

Would it be possible that you could share your OPII script? (IE: event and temperature logging script)

Is that the"omnilog" zip file you posted earlier?

 

[jharrell]

jharrell -

Would it be possible that you could share your OPII script? (IE: event and temperature logging script)

Is that the"omnilog" zip file you posted earlier?

Yes OmniLog is the .Net program I made to do that. So it's technically not a script but a compiled console program run from tack scheduler .