[time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown

Sat Jan 15 15:34:39 UTC 2022

I built some prototypes using those OCXOs, a decade ago. The warmup time is
extremely fast, because the resonator is in vacuum and IIRC is heated by a
resistor printed on the quartz. We needed that fast warmup. Yes, they were
expensive.

Cheers!
--Stu

On Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 02:49 <time-nuts-request at lists.febo.com> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Vectron 380 teardown (Poul-Henning Kamp)
>    2. Re: Vectron 380 teardown (Bob kb8tq)
>    3. Re: Vectron 380 teardown (Attila Kinali)
>    4. Re: Vectron 380 teardown (Attila Kinali)
>    5. Re: Vectron 380 teardown (Bob kb8tq)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:44:22 +0000
> From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
> Subject: [time-nuts] Vectron 380 teardown
> To: time-nuts at lists.febo.com
> Message-ID: <202201141744.20EHiMoX041571 at critter.freebsd.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> With high praise for aesthetics even:
>
>         https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216
>
> --
> Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
> Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 14:41:50 -0500
> From: Bob kb8tq <kb8tq at n1k.org>
> Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>         <time-nuts at lists.febo.com>
> Message-ID: <0D921323-260A-4C90-B8F4-EC20E3A3AD8D at n1k.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi
>
> Just over 12 years old when he chopped it open.
>
> Bob
>
> > On Jan 14, 2022, at 12:44 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
> wrote:
> >
> > With high praise for aesthetics even:
> >
> >       https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216
> >
> > --
> > Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> > phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> > FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
> > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
> incompetence.
> > _______________________________________________
> > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe
> send an email to time-nuts-leave at lists.febo.com
> > To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:20:03 +0100
> From: Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch>
> Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>         <time-nuts at lists.febo.com>
> Message-ID: <20220114212003.2acae7a08cb7565b8eaf1827 at kinali.ch>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:44:22 +0000
> Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>
> >       https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216
>
> Now that's an interesting design.
> My first thought was, "hell, using /two/ ceramic carriers
> for PCBs and using gold wires to connect them to eachother,
> that must have been a hell of an expensive DIL-14 oscillator".
>
> Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what,
> that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged,
> nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to
> other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually
> quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too!
> And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$
> have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift.
>
> Lovely device!
>
> (Still think it's probably quite expensive)
>
>                         Attila Kinali
>
> [1] https://www.vectron.com/products/ocxo/EMXO-380-385.pdf
> --
> The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?"
> There are things we don't understand and things we always
> wonder about. And that's why we do research.
>                 -- Kobayashi Makoto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:34:44 +0100
> From: Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch>
> Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>         <time-nuts at lists.febo.com>
> Message-ID: <20220114213444.d575e7762227d9dd398453e0 at kinali.ch>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:20:03 +0100
> Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:
>
>
> > Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what,
> > that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged,
> > nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to
> > other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually
> > quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too!
> > And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$
> > have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift.
>
> Some additional info can be found in
> https://patents.google.com/patent/US5917272
> and
> https://patents.google.com/patent/US6731180
>
> It looks like the device follows more closely the latter
> patent than the former.
>
>                         Attila Kinali
>
> --
> The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?"
> There are things we don't understand and things we always
> wonder about. And that's why we do research.
>                 -- Kobayashi Makoto
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 18:40:35 -0500
> From: Bob kb8tq <kb8tq at n1k.org>
> Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Vectron 380 teardown
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>         <time-nuts at lists.febo.com>
> Message-ID: <C15FC23C-97EC-44D0-B570-7A56D02D132A at n1k.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=utf-8
>
> Hi
>
> The design traces back to the Efratom â€œEMXOâ€ from the 1980â€™s.
> Vectron bought the rights to that design and produced examples
> of it for about a decade or so.
>
> Bob
>
> > On Jan 14, 2022, at 3:20 PM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:44:22 +0000
> > Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
> >
> >>      https://twitter.com/EvilMnkyzDsignz/status/1482039903995273216
> >
> > Now that's an interesting design.
> > My first thought was, "hell, using /two/ ceramic carriers
> > for PCBs and using gold wires to connect them to eachother,
> > that must have been a hell of an expensive DIL-14 oscillator".
> >
> > Then I looked at the Datasheet [1] (ok appnote) and guess what,
> > that's no mere oscillator. That's a bona-fide OCXO. Vacuum packaged,
> > nonetheless! Sure, it doesn't have the best stability compared to
> > other OCXO, but compared to other DIL-14 sized OCXO, it's actually
> > quite good. And it's only the size of a regular XO too!
> > And this also explains the need for ceramic: an FR4 PCB would$
> > have too much outgasing that would then lead to drift.
> >
> > Lovely device!
> >
> > (Still think it's probably quite expensive)
> >
> >                       Attila Kinali
> >
> > [1] https://www.vectron.com/products/ocxo/EMXO-380-385.pdf
> > --
> > The driving force behind research is the question: "Why?"
> > There are things we don't understand and things we always
> > wonder about. And that's why we do research.
> >               -- Kobayashi Makoto
> > _______________________________________________
> > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe
> send an email to time-nuts-leave at lists.febo.com
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