Ships Voltage - alarm clock - funny story

We sailed on the Pride of Aloha Aug 13-20, 2006. I read on these forums to bring a clock as there are none in the rooms, so I packed my plug in alarm clock from home. Nice red numbers that I can see from across the room at night.

We went to bed the first night, and wanted to call the dinner reservation desk at 7am when they opened to book specialty restaurants for the week. Well, we woke up at about 5:30am-6am so I showered, and got ready for the day. At 7am, I called the desk - no answer. After repeated attempts, I finally looked at my wristwatch on the counter: it said 3:30am!!!!!!!

I thought.. what the heck! I must have been really tired when I set the clock yesterday. So, I reset the clock to the right time, and we went back to bed. We wolk up at about 6:30am on our own. We got dressed again, and called the desk again to reserve out dinner times. No answer. Now being wiser, I checked my watch - 5:30 or something like that!!!

ARGH!!!! I watched the clock.. every 40 seconds, a new minute ticked by. The voltage in the room was so far off, it made the minutes tick by almost in a 3:2 ratio. haha.. we laughed then, and still laugh about that.

The clock worked fine for us in Oahu after the cruise, and is workind fine this morning.. so it's the ship's voltage that is messed up.

We ran into this on our Seabourn cruise. They provide those real nice BOSE radios, but they put a warning on the radio to not trust the time. It was only off a few minutes a day in this case.

The slightly different voltage does cause issues. Applicances work, but when it comes to a clock, good luck.

Wow, thats stinkin' hillarious. Are y'all heavy sleepers or did it take a while to get back to sleep?

Most clocks still derive their timebase from the frequency of the input voltage.

I suppose if you want to be assured you will get up ON TIME trust Big Ben. :)

Of course he's been replaced by the Chinese quartz wiih even better accuracy (crystal vibrating at 32,768 cycles per second vs. a balance wheel at 2) but I like the old stuff. :)

A synchronus motor clock at 50Hz will actually run SLOWER though. With digital anyone's guess. The cheapies could have a ac-dc converter and quartz crystal and those should run on anything between 80 and 250V ac or dc. Ironic eh?

Most clocks still derive their timebase from the frequency of the input voltage.

 

I suppose if you want to be assured you will get up ON TIME trust Big Ben. :)

 

Of course he's been replaced by the Chinese quartz wiih even better accuracy (crystal vibrating at 32,768 cycles per second vs. a balance wheel at 2) but I like the old stuff. :)

 

A synchronus motor clock at 50Hz will actually run SLOWER though. With digital anyone's guess. The cheapies could have a ac-dc converter and quartz crystal and those should run on anything between 80 and 250V ac or dc. Ironic eh?

Wow... you sell time for a living

Wow... you sell time for a living

Look at his avatar.....he is associated with a scary large scale electrical & electronics company :eek:

Look at his avatar.....he is associated with a scary large scale electrical & electronics company :eek:

I've never heard of it... "Hi I'm Matt I live under a very large rock, nice to meet you world."

Simple electronics as KimDave points out. Never bring a plug in clock when traveling on a ship.

The time in the clock is derived from the frequency (Hertz) that the ship is generating for electricity. Even if's running at 63Hz, it can put your time out a whole bit (remember, normal North American currents run at 60Hz). So a electrical generator designed for European standards trying to run at North American standards is just to inaccurate.

Bottom line, bring a battery clock if you really need one.

We have experienced similar troubles charging our cellphone, after a week or so it crashes! once youve returned to regular voltage all is ok again. haha we came very close to buying a new phone! we use it as our alarm clock as well.

We have experienced similar troubles charging our cellphone, after a week or so it crashes! once youve returned to regular voltage all is ok again. haha we came very close to buying a new phone! we use it as our alarm clock as well.

Has anyone else had a problem w/ cell phones crashing? I just blew 150 bucks on a razr and I really don't want to risk it.

I have had a similar experience on Celebrity - I brought along a nice LED Clock with big Red Numbers on it so I could see it in the dark. On 14 day sailing the time was all over the place. Some days the time was correct sometime I could gain an hour or two per day and other time I would loose a couple hours a day. I finally figured that the frequency was inconsistent.

I still like brining a clock along but have shiifted to a large number LCD clock. Only proplem is I have to roll over an tap it for it to light up... Ugh.

If someone knows a battery operated option that is readable in the dark I sure would enjoy hearing about it.

Jim

Ships Cruise on Electricity

from

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA212211.html

You can drag along a 1kVA ferroresonant transformer that will give you rock solid 120VAC 60Hz power but it's fairly heavy. (about 45kg) :eek:

You can drag along a 1kVA ferroresonant transformer that will give you rock solid 120VAC 60Hz power but it's fairly heavy. (about 45kg) :eek:

I think a wake up call is so much easier. I am enjoying these stories though.

Not quite the same, but I thought I was being smart in buying a cheap battery powered "self adjusting" travel clock. Just a little too cheap it turns out. Only had the capability of selecting the four main U.S. time zones...

That is funny. Never heard of anything like that happening.

We missed one of the tours we were really looking forward to but could only blame ourselves. Missed the item in the daily bulletin about changing the clock. Misery loves company. we weren't the only ones. They could have filled another bus if they had one.

I was being smart in buying a cheap battery powered "self adjusting" travel clock..

Atomic watches

from

http://www.radiocontrolledclock.com/gifts.html

Radio controlled clocks or "Atomic Clocks" keep perfect time by automatically synchronizing to the radio signal emitted from the U.S. Atomic Clock in Colorado.

from

http://www.ambientweather.com/atwr.html

Atomic watches

from

http://www.radiocontrolledclock.com/gifts.html

 

Radio controlled clocks or "Atomic Clocks" keep perfect time by automatically synchronizing to the radio signal emitted from the U.S. Atomic Clock in Colorado.

from

http://www.ambientweather.com/atwr.html

Those will not work on a ship. (most of the time)

1) The hull is like a Faraday cage blocking what little signal you would receive.

2) In an open area the signal is very low in most areas folks would be on a cruise (Caribbean) and completely out of range across the pond.

A good quartz clock will keep sufficiently accurate time throughout the voyage. We're talking a second or two at the most. If you need better accuracy you're looking at hydrogen maser clocks and these are expensive. If you happen to travel with equipment based on PPS (precision positioning system) then you will have ±5 µS accuracy anyways. :eek:

Or just take cruises on ships not equipped with pods. On non sea days you will not sleep in especially in the lower bunks.

Funny story Todd...thing is it could have been one of those "Nightmare on NCL " stories if it was another cruiser...Just goes to show that attitude has SO MUCH to do with how much you enjoy (or hate) your cruise experience!

Thanks for sharing, glad I have a battery operated clock to bring along, never even gave a passing thought to this until I read your account.

If you need better accuracy you're looking at hydrogen maser clocks and these are expensive.

The Hydrogen Maser Clock Project

from

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/hmc/

Precise Time and the Master Clock

from

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/clocks.html