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Comment: Crystals (Score 1) 439

by igaborf (#36563966) Attached to: Power Grid Change May Disrupt Clocks

Except those "highly accurate" crystals are not so highly accurate. Their frequency changes with temperature and as the crystals and other components in the circuitry age. The value of using the power line as a reference is not that it is all that accurate in the short term, it's that it is highly accurate over long periods because it is continually adjusted to be so.

Yes, your battery-backed-up clock will keep time while the power is off, but keep that clock running on battery for a month or so and you will find it inexorably drifts off the right time. You'll end up periodically having to adjust the clock manually. That's not the case if you sync to the power line -- for now, at least.

Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.

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