Troubleshooting
Power

• When starting the clock, nwts LEDs do not turn on
  • Check if the 3.5mm cable is correctly inserted in the GPS/RFT jack and not the PIR jack
  • Check if the male/male cable or adapter is working. Replace with another
  • Check if the ESP-01 module is correctly aligned with the arrow next to the 8 pin socket: the module should be over the nwts-ub3 board.
    
• nwts red LED turns on and blue LED is always on
  
  • Check if the jack is properly inserted into the clock or nwts - most likely the power pin is connected to the data pin.
    
  • If your clock's casing is too thick, either use a thinner cable or increase the hole size
    
• My clock’s digits are now fading during some hours of the day. If I connect my old GPS module this issue won’t happen.
  • PV Electronics power recommendation for a IN-18 clock is a 12V 1A power supply. This is not enough, as the nwts device (90mA) uses 4 times more power than a GPS module (22mA). A 1.5A power supply fixes the issue.
  • With 500mA clocks, a 1A power supply also solves the issue.
• ESP-01 red LED is lit, but the blue does not blink
  • There's not enough power supplied. Please use another power supply

Wi-Fi & Network

• When connecting to the Wi-Fi network nwts-conf, a password is required:
  • Use config-me as the password.
• I’ve connected the device, but I cannot see the nwts-conf network. The blue LED blinks regularly
  • Your device is already connected to a network. If you need to connect to a new network, press the reset button for more than 2 seconds. The nwts-conf network will appear.
• When connecting with my computer/mobile/tablet to the nwts-conf network, I don’t see any landing page
  • Maybe your device did not recognize it was using a zero-conf network. Open a web browser and try to open any web-page. The WifiManager webpage should appear
  • Restart your device (power cycle your clock)
• My network is not shown in the SSID list because it’s hidden
  • On the WifiManager page, select “Configure WiFi (No Scan)” and enter your network details manually
• I want to setup a static IP address on my device
  • You’ll have to make a reservation on your DHCP server. It’s not possible to set a manual IP address at the device.
• I have more than one nwts device. When connecting to http://nwts.local I get randomly connect to one of the devices
  • Disconnect all nwts devices but one
  • Access the http://nwts.local page
  • Change the hostname to a new name. Save.
  • Make the same for the remaining devices. Make sure that each one is named differently
  • You can now access each device independently.

Configuration web-page

• Entering http://nwts.local on my browser I get either a “Server not found” page or a timeout
  • Did you change your nwts device hostname?
    • On the command line either on the PC or the Mac issue:
      • dns-sd -B _http._tcp
    • You should see a list of all found Bonjour devices in your network. Use the name of your device.
  • Does your Windows computer have Bonjour installed? Or mDNS if it’s a Linux machine?
  • If you’re using a Windows computer without Bonjour, you can try to discover the device in your network neighbourhood. Got to “My Computer”. Select “Network”. Make sure that Network Discovery is running. Your device should appear. Double clicking it should open the device’s webpage
• I get the webpage, but I see only XXX instead of values
  • Make sure that JavaScript is not disabled in your browser. nwts requires JavaScript to read information from the device.
  • If using NoScript, make an exception for your nwts device
• I see “❌ Time not synchronised” in the “Clock Status” section
  • Make sure you’ve configured a reachable NTP server.
  • The device loses real time clock information every time it is power cycled, so it requires NTP to synchronize after each startup – maybe it failed the initial NTP requests. Wait up to 4 min before power cycling the device.
• I see “  Last sync failed. Please monitor!” in the “Clock Status” section
  • nwts only makes one NTP query every 2 minutes. If one query fails, nwts might show this warning until the next synchronization. If this persists, use a different NTP server

Operation

• There's a time mismatch in my clock
  • nwts provides the time only in UTC, so:
    • You must set up your time-zone in your Nixie clock
    • UTC does not observe Summer Time, so, during summer time, press the DST button on your clock to show the correct time
  • The green LED flashes from time to time
    • nwts by default is configured to pool NTP from pool.ntp.org. This might give you a random server from a region far away and the NTP request might timeout.
    • It’s recommended to setup a closer NTP source. A good indication is to use xx.pool.ntp.org where xx is the code of the country where you reside. For a complete list of available options, please visit http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome
  • nwts does not average NTP times for accuracy
    • nwts only queries NTP once per synchronization call, so the time will have minor network delays (usually less than 3s)
    • Its precision is about 1s, which is enough for consumer clocks. Tests have shown no difference between GPS, DCF and NTP synchronization and they are always synchronized within less than 1s of each other.
      • Future versions might have better NTP handling code.
• The blue LED blinks regularly, but my Nixie clock does not get synchronized
  • Make sure you’ve set up the correct UART speed
    • It is recommended to use 9600 for PV Electronics clocks, 4800 for Mr. Nixie clocks
      • Configure your Nixie clock for the desired speed
      • Configure your nwts device for the same speed
  • Make sure the license is loaded. The license status should be “Active”. If not, re-insert the license.
• I want to see the debug messages
  • You need to connect your nwts device to a USB adaptor to see the debug messages
• I want to program a new firmware into my nwts device
  • You need to connect your nwts device to a ESP programmer
  • You can get your firmware files here.