[time-nuts] synchronizing a large number of weakly coupled oscillators

[Hal Murray]

> Presumably, a large population of cheap coupled oscillators could be rather
> accurate collectively. 

Why?

There are 2 main sources of error in inexpensive crystal oscillators.

The first is the initial manufacturing error.  I'd expect crystals made from 
the same batch to have similar errors.  If you want a large population, you 
are going to get most/many of them from similar batches.

The other is temperature.  I'd expect that oscillators of a specific design 
to have similar temperature dependencies.  Some vendors even include a graph 
in their app-notes.


It might be interesting to collect oscillators from different vendors and 
batches and see what sort of spread you end up with.


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