Christopher Tidy wrote:
Hi all,

I'm thinking of building an electronic clock control circuit which uses
the 50 Hz mains frequency for time keeping. The reason for this is that
the clock dial is rather large, so probably wouldn't run for long on
battery power, and I don't fancy spending £40 buying a programmable
quartz oscillator chip.

Despite doing some research online and in electrical engineering books,
I can't find a figure for the accuracy of the time keeping of the UK
power grid. Perhaps this is because there aren't official bounds set for
the time error - one of my electrical engineering books says it is a
legal requirement that the frequency be kept "as close as possible to 50
Hz" - but even if this is the case it should be possible to determine a
typical error figure.

From my point of view I'd regard an acceptable error as 5 minutes every
6 months. Does anyone know the typical time error seen on the UK grid,
or where I might find this information? Any suggestions would be much
appreciated.


IIRC it is actually 100% spot on in the long term.

However it tends to go plus minus several seconds during the day as peak
loads tend to slow the generators..they then overrun a bit in the off
peak hours to catch up.

BUT as a matte of standard and poossibly even law, they always do get it
right over the long period.


Best wishes,

Chris Tidy