American Time Blog

Sometimes life throws you a curveball and things break. It could be the radiator in your car or your cellphone falling on the floor and cracking the screen. Similarly, all mechanical clocks may eventually break down.

What makes a mechanical clock “mechanical” is the type of movement inside the clock. Mechanical clocks have a mechanical movement which means metal gears powered by a motor work together to advance the hands forward. These clocks are commonly found in schools as part of a legacy wired clock system.

Often, it’s the motor in these clocks that go bad. The most common call we get about broken mechanical clocks is about replacing the Synchron® motor in Simplex® clocks. There are over 400 Synchron motors found in various mechanical clocks. Not sure what type of Synchron motor your clocks have? We have a blog for that.

There's a reason you don't swat a fly with a sledge hammer. That kind of power would lay waste to more than just the fly.

The same mindset applies to electrical systems. Applying high voltage to a device that can't handle it, results in fried circuits and a potential fire hazard. That's why it's important to consider clock voltage when making a purchase for your facility, whether you're buying a few replacements or installing an entirely new synchronized time system.

When every second matters, each person in your clinic or hospital needs to be on the same time. Whether tracking surgery time, coordinating patient care, keeping appointments on time or recording tasks, precise time throughout a building or campus is essential.

In a clinic or hospital, every second counts. From floor to floor, and from each staff member to each patient, nearly every aspect of care depends on an entire building working in sync.  

When someone walks into a building, their experience is essential. Occupants and visitors should feel safe and secure. Technology should support efficient work and precise, real-time communications.

Digital communication and signage in a building is an effective way to achieve this. In addition to sharing important daily news and messaging capabilities, modern communication platforms can deliver emergency alerts and clear instructions for keeping individuals safe and secure. In other words, a communication platform is most valuable when it can be used for both routine daily messaging and to bolster and reinforce critical emergency alerts. Let’s look at a few specific examples.

When a building or campus’s clock system runs on a Wi-Fi network or Power over Ethernet (PoE) connection, it’s an elegant solution because it solves the need for synchronized time simply and effectively: Each clocks displays the same, precise time that it retrieves using an existing Wi-Fi network or via an Ethernet cable. Both Wi-Fi and PoE clocks are in the IP Network category of clock systems.  

Some companies assume that they need to purchase and operate an expensive time server to support an IP Network clock system. As a global provider of clock systems to some of the most recognized companies around the world, we can authoritatively say that spending thousands on a time server could be redundant, unnecessary and a waste of capital if it’s not needed for the application.  

Inefficiencies in the workplace are not always easy to spot. You won't see employees literally setting $100 bills on fire, but inevitably, there will be times during the day when otherwise productive work hours might as well be going up in smoke.

And this isn't necessarily due to a lack of work ethic or motivation. At DMR Electronics, a manufacturer of industrial electronic components and wiring harnesses, employees sometimes had no other choice but to waste time standing around while waiting for meetings to get underway. But, it wasn't their fault. Since there was no single time source to rely on, their schedules were easily thrown out of whack.

The phenomenon led DMR to research synchronized clock systems, ultimately choosing American Time to bring an added sense of order to its daily operations.

Anyone who's ever visited an ice cream shop, craft beer taproom, or the cereal aisle of a grocery store knows choices can be hard. Cheerios or Captain Crunch? Weird... somehow they both ended up my cart. But sometimes in business, you have to make just one choice and when making big decisions is part of your job, the stakes only rise.

If you're tasked with selecting a synchronized clock system for your facility, there are many options to choose from. If you don’t know much about synchronized time, your mission might seem easy at first, you just buy clocks and hang them on the walls right? But just like buying an ice cream cone or picking out your favorite cereal brand, there are a variety of options to choose from. We are, after all, talking about installing an entire network of electronic devices.

As you delve deeper into this mission, you might require some guidance. Here, we'll help you determine which type of clock is best for you, depending on your industry and the type of facility you're responsible for keeping on time.

If the march of time means progress, then it is only fitting that the devices that track  time are also subject to innovations along the way.

In a world that becomes more connected every day, so are the synchronized clock systems that coordinate our lives. At the heart of such a system is the master system controller, also known as the master clock. This device ties together all the clocks throughout a facility.

The master clock sends the time signal to the secondary clocks, making sure they all tick as one, but newer versions synchronize time in truer fashion and are easier to use.

Here, we'll explain how the latest master controllers differ from the models of yesteryear.

Master clocks have been keeping time synchronized in schools, hospitals, factories and offices for a long, long time. Like the conductor of an Orchestra keeping musicians moving to the same beat, the master clock keeps everyone moving at the right pace, by ensuring that every clock in its system is showing the same time.