tl;dr: I set up an open source Time Pi project to build a stratum 1 PTP and NTP timeserver using a Raspberry Pi.

Time is important to modern society, and most of us have a clock on our wrist that’s more accurate than at any time in human history. But highly precise time is important in many industries, especially robotics, finance, and media production. And with tech like VR working its way into homes, precise time may become more important there, too.

The timing industry has many solutions for ‘grandmaster’ clocks, which take in highly accurate time from GPS, GNSS, or other atomic-clock-backed time sources, and distribute it to local networks with extreme precision—down to the nanosecond range—using PTP.

Historically, setting up a DIY PTP grandmaster clock server was a painful and expensive endeavor, pricing out most hobbyists. So I’m introducing a project that’s been in the works for some time: Time Pi, a stratum 1 PTP and NTP timeserver based on a Raspberry Pi 5.

In the picture above, it is installed inside a LabStack module inside a 3U RackMate TT (an as-yet-unreleased version of DeskPi’s mini racks—I’m working with them on ironing out the design). I have powered it using a PoE to USB-C power splitter, from my GigaPlus 2.5 Gbps PoE+ switch.

Video

I’m lucky to live in the same city as Masterclock, a timing solutions company that’s been manufacturing time servers and clocks for most of my life.

I’ve been discussing my project with them for over a year, and they provided me two PoE-powered NTP clocks for the studio, and for my testing with the Time Pi (the analog/digital hybrid clock is pictured above, and a 1U rackmount clock is pictured below):

Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, formerly the Chief Scientist for the US Naval Observatory (which helps coordinate the time in UTC!), is now Masterclock’s Chief Scientist. He and John Clark (the CTO) were gracious enough to visit my studio and chat with me about their new time server, the GMR6000, and about time and DIY solu