Many of our projects revolve around precise timing, whether it’s triggering an action at just the right moment or displaying the exact time down to the second. From the simplest digital clocks to complex, battery-powered systems that control historic gas lamps or Olympic displays, we’ve designed it, built it, and made it work flawlessly! If your project depends on timing, we’re the people to make it happen.
You might not realise it, but there are still hundreds of gas lamps lighting up Central London, especially around places like The Mall and Covent Garden. Next time you’re walking there at night, look up…
These beautiful lamps date back centuries and were originally powered by clockwork timers, lovely bits of engineering that had to be wound up by British Gas engineers every couple of weeks to keep them switching on and off at the right time. But as you can imagine, many of those mechanisms are now over 100 years old, and maintaining them had become almost impossible.
That’s where we came in. British Gas approached Winter & Smith to help bring these iconic lights into the modern age, without losing their character. We designed and built a bespoke, battery-powered electronic controller that replicates the old clockwork system, complete with smart timing and a modern gas valve.
When the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics asked for something special on the equestrian course in Greenwich Park, they had a bold idea: build a horse jump directly over the Meridian Line, with 20 clocks showing the exact time in each competing country. The catch? Every clock had to be perfectly in sync, down to the second, and the jump was right in the middle of a park, with no mains power in sight.
That’s where we came in.
Winter & Smith were brought in to design a bespoke, battery-powered clock system that could do it all. Each clock face had its own GPS receiver, which not only pinpointed its location on Earth but also provided a constant stream of ultra-precise UTC time. By using that signal, and a clever set of DIP switches, each face could be set to match any time zone in the world, including those odd half-hour differences.
We used stepper motors and optical sensors to control and track the hands. When powered up, each clock would wait for a GPS fix, then spin its hands forwards or backwards to reach the correct time, before ticking forward in perfect synchronisation with its neighbours. Two motors controlled each face: one for the seconds hand, and one for the minutes and hours via a custom gearbox.
We had just one day to install the system on-site before the event, and everything worked flawlessly.
Another timing project we loved working on involved the kind of clocks you see on churches and country buildings. Most of these run on simple mains-powered motors that stay accurate thanks to the UK’s ultra-precise 50Hz mains frequency. It’s a clever system, until there’s a power cut or the clocks change for daylight saving. Suddenly, the hands are out of sync, and someone has to manually reset them, often in hard-to-reach places.
So we designed a smarter solution: a power-down controller that can manage up to four faces at once. It uses a super-accurate internal clock, lets the installer set the real time and the hand positions, and handles power cuts seamlessly by resuming when real time catches up. It even takes care of summer/winter time changes by pausing the hands for exactly the right amount of time. Simple, precise, and designed to keep these beautiful old clocks ticking without the hassle.
Unlike other companies that outsource their PCB manufacturing, Winter & Smith designs and builds PCBs in-house.
Tailored to you – We can create custom PCBs specifically for your needs, ensuring that all components and connections are optimised for integration and long-term performance.
Higher quality – By controlling the entire production process, we ensure that every board meets high-quality standards
Faster problem solving – If an issue arises, we can quickly modify and produce updated PCBs without waiting for external suppliers, getting your systems back up and running
Click and drag to interact with our clock GPS 3D CAD PCB board
