piface shime RTC installation issue

Have you enabled i2c in the raspi-config ?

Yes I2C is enabled

Looking at the date your profile was created, welcome to the Element14 Community.

I have done some dabbling with Pi RTC. https://www.element14.com/community/message/276904/l/pi-configuration-for-real-time-clock#276904  is a post trying to find some understanding.

Below is a procedure I used to get a DS3231 RTC working last year. Not sure what chipset your RTC is using. I would assume it would need a driver loaded using a configuration similar to this. Unfortunately, the time architecture in the Pi appears to get further development and users are left to discover how to get it working once again.

Using your favourite text editor, add a call for the kernel to support a RTC on boot to the bottom of the /boot/config.txt file – a reboot is required for this change to take effect:

#enable RTC DS3231

dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,ds3231

Now that we have a time reference, let’s remove the two software packages that Raspbian uses for supporting time. From the command line interface (CLI), issue the following command to remove the NTP and fake hardware clock software:

sudo apt-get purge ntp fake-hwclock

Using the CLI, let’s establish the time zone configuration by entering the following command and following the prompts.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Now let’s establish the date and time. This can be done through the command line using the sudo date --set ‘yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss’ command. That requires a little more typing than needed, so while the device is connected to a network, we’ll cheat and use an online time source to nail up the date and time.

sudo apt-get install ntpdate

sudo ntpdate <replace with the URL or IP address of a time source, this includes the parenthesis>

Dear Sean,

Thanks for our input

The chip on the pcb is different so I have used

dparam=i2c1=on

dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,mcp7940x

Unfortunatly I could not get it working with your info

Dear All

It apears that the driver is installed correct because I get UU on postion 6f by the i2cdetect 1

but hwclock -r responds an error

I found this post https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17597  for the chip you have specifically. You may have already tried these steps. There are a few command lines that I have found useful in the past.

Hi Dolf,

There's a PiFace webpage here, with a PDF link at the bottom of the page, which contains a link to a script to enable the Piface RTC.

PiFace – PiFace Real Time Clock

Dear Shabaz,

I followed the link and installed for the 3e time.

In the installation it indicate to check the Piface rtc status with

sudo systemctl status pifacertc  the respond is

     pifacertc.service - LSB: add the piface RTC

          Loaded: loaded (etc/init.d/pifacertc; generated)

          Active: inactive (dead)

               Docs:systemd-sysv-generator(8)

But when i have a sudo hwclock -- verbose it returns with

     clock from util-linux 2.33.1

     System time : 1580501281.636260

     Trying to open: /dev/rtc0

     no usable clock interface found

Why did you install the script 3 times?

Perhaps you may need to check the connections. It's a silly product anyway (relying on slight pressure to make electrical contact).