[time-nuts] is there a cheap and simple way to measure OCXOs?

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Tue Jun 5 11:25:56 UTC 2012


On 05/06/12 12:18, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Wed, 30 May 2012 15:11:03 +0200
> Attila Kinali<attila at kinali.ch>  wrote:
>
>
>> I recently bought some Oscilloquartz 8663 from ebay and am now wondering
>> how to check whether they are working correctly or whether they are
>> out of specs.
>>
>> Unfortunately, although i have a reasonable park of measurement instruments,
>> none of them are in the precision range that i'd need to characterize
>> the 8663's.
>
>
> thanks everyone for the answers! I did dig a little bit trough the avilable
> devices (ie those that do not cost me an arm and a leg to buy) and came
> to the conclusion that i have to reformulate my requirements.
>
> I think, the most important thing for me at the moment is to verify that
> i do not have any defect devices. Defect in the sense of something other
> than "does not output any signal" (these are trivial to detect).
>
> And here i'm stuck again. What are likely defects of an OCXO? And how would
> i detect them?

Oven failure. The most common failures in my experience is that they 
either do not heat up or they are stuck at full heating. Sensing the 
OCXO should work most of the times. Monitoring the current is another 
cheap hint and measuring frequency is another. At work we measure the 
frequency first, and as they open the box up they usually note if it is 
hot or cold.

Cheers,
Magnus



More information about the time-nuts mailing list