Hackaday · Creativity & design

Tiny Microcontroller Powers Accurate Clock

A European clock can achieve high accuracy by decoding the DCF77 radio time signal using a small microcontroller.

The DCF77 signal, broadcast at 77.5 kHz from Germany, is a low-speed digital time format easily decoded by microcontrollers like the ATtiny. This project uses such a chip to process the bitstream from a receiver and display the time on an I2C screen.

While the receiver is not included, building a single-frequency longwave receiver is straightforward. The interface includes a push-button for cycling display modes or triggering a reset. The system can also accommodate an external temperature sensor and real-time clock module if the microcontroller has sufficient pins.

This project is noted for its simplicity and effectiveness, demonstrating that complex tasks do not always require powerful processors. Further details on the DCF77 signal have been previously featured.

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