[time-nuts] China Oscillator Alternative

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Thu Nov 10 01:17:54 UTC 2016


On Thu, 10 Nov 2016 00:18:31 +0000 (UTC)
Perry Sandeen via time-nuts <time-nuts at febo.com> wrote:

> After all the problems that Bob Camp has noted with surplus OCXO's from China, perhaps buying the new Lucent units on Ebay may save bad words and/or unhappy actions.

Depends on what you are after. IMHO, unless there is a really rare and
possibly quite good OCXO on ebay (like well aged 10811) or very cheap
DOCXOs (like the Oscilloquartz 8663), then it does not necessairly make
sense to buy them used. For a lot of  applications, a 35€[1] to 60€[2]
OCXO is enough. For 110€[3] you already get quite low noise, high stability
ones. If you need better, you go into the 150-200€[4] realm....

Beyond 200€ you are in a region where ebay does not have any offers.
But then you are also in an region where you want to know exactly
what you are buying.

I used the Abracon OCXOs here, because they are readily available
from Mouser and Digikey (which also includes prices). You can also
go to Vectron, Wenzel and Axtal and depending on your requirments
you should be at similar prices.


Of course you can also go for the DIY oscillator, but then you need
to get your hands on SC cut crystals (not that many companies sell them)
and design and build your own circuit and oven. You might get better
results than the run of the mill designs, but I doubt you'll get below
200€ with something like that.

Please be aware that just because something is sold on ebay does not
mean it's cheap. Actually a lot of the special stuff is sold for almost
or sometimes even over the new price, because it's "rare". 

			Attila Kinali

[1] Abracon AOCJYR
[2] Abracon AOCJY1
[3] Abracon AOCJY3
[4] Abracon AOCJY4
-- 
Malek's Law:
        Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.



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