Stuck Or Faulty Clock

This is an error message reported by the XL-Unloader program after you’ve emptied an Unloader box into your PC. The message “List of wands with Stuck Or Faulty Clock” then shows perhaps a few serial numbers and a count with each.

What does this mean? It means that the clock in the wand is having a problem. The XL-Unloader program detects more than one record at the same date and time. Since this means a user must be at more than one place at the same data and time, it is faulty. NOTE – there is an exception for Radio Wands picking up more than one signal at the same time.

How Is It Caused? Most commonly it means there is moisture or condensation inside the wand. This causes the clock to stop or run a lot slower. The second cause is if the wand goes flat or nearly flat. The clock can stop and not re-start properly. In this case there may be many records with “00:00:00” time.

When it is not a problem? For Voyager Radio Wands, it can mean the wand picked up more than one radio signal at the same time. This is not a fault so long as there are only a very few of them. Just a few every now and then. Radio, by its very nature, can be extremely random at times and occasionally more than one signal will be logged by a wand at the same time.

How Is The Clock Implemented? We use a dedicated real time clock chip and a dedicated small ‘crystal’ beside it. These keep excellent time – usually keeping time to within a second or two per day compared to an Unloader. The Unloader uses the same circuitry. By setting the Unloader from your PC (use “SetClock” button) the Unloader is kept corrrect. The Wand is then sync’d to the Unloader each time it is emptied