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Using non-overtone crystal in overtone mode?

T

Tim Shoppa

Jan 1, 1970
0
Are "overtone" crystals cut differently than "fundamental" crystals?
Or are they just specified differently?

In particular, say I took a garden-variety 20MHz fundamental
microprocessor crystal and instead used it at its fifth overtone,
trying to hit 100 MHz. The LC network is there to make sure that it's
on its fifth overtone. Will this "misuse" mean that the oscillator
will be harder to start up, less stable, more noisy, ???, than a
crystal oscillator made out of a real overtone crystal? I don't mind
if I "miss" 100 MHz by a several tens or hundreds of ppm, as long as
it's stable there.

If anyone knows of a place that ships off-the-shelf 100 MHz fifth or
seventh overtone crystals, I can avoid this whole exercise.... :)

Tim.
 
T

Tim Wescott

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim said:
Are "overtone" crystals cut differently than "fundamental" crystals?
Or are they just specified differently?

In particular, say I took a garden-variety 20MHz fundamental
microprocessor crystal and instead used it at its fifth overtone,
trying to hit 100 MHz. The LC network is there to make sure that it's
on its fifth overtone. Will this "misuse" mean that the oscillator
will be harder to start up, less stable, more noisy, ???, than a
crystal oscillator made out of a real overtone crystal? I don't mind
if I "miss" 100 MHz by a several tens or hundreds of ppm, as long as
it's stable there.

If anyone knows of a place that ships off-the-shelf 100 MHz fifth or
seventh overtone crystals, I can avoid this whole exercise.... :)

Tim.
Overtone crystal cuts are not fundamentally different from fundamental
crystal cuts, so to a 1st-order approximation they'll work. Crystals do
have spurious responses that can cause mode jumping, and these responses
don't necessarily map the same way the overtones do, so using a 20MHz
crystal at 100MHz may or may not work, depending on the luck of the
draw. Other than that I don't know of any differences.

IIRC Digi-Key has 100MHz crystals, but I may be remembering 100MHz
oscillators. YMMV. IDNKWTFIAS. Caviat Emptor (so _that's_ what CE
means! Here I thought it was a quality mark). Etc.
 
T

Tom Bruhns

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim, would a 100MHz oscillator module do for you? See DigiKey
CTX318LVCT-ND, for example.

Cheers,
Tom
 
J

John Fields

Jan 1, 1970
0
Are "overtone" crystals cut differently than "fundamental" crystals?
Or are they just specified differently?

In particular, say I took a garden-variety 20MHz fundamental
microprocessor crystal and instead used it at its fifth overtone,
trying to hit 100 MHz. The LC network is there to make sure that it's
on its fifth overtone. Will this "misuse" mean that the oscillator
will be harder to start up, less stable, more noisy, ???, than a
crystal oscillator made out of a real overtone crystal? I don't mind
if I "miss" 100 MHz by a several tens or hundreds of ppm, as long as
it's stable there.

---
You can use a fundamental mode crystal as an overtone oscillator, but
even if you can get it to oscillate, it won't be generating an
overtone at 100MHz, since overtone modes of oscillation aren't
harmonically related to the fundamental. It's more like the slab of
crystal is vibrating like the drumhead of a steel drum with small
areas of the slab vibrating at higher frequencies, instead of the
entire slab virbarting at just one frequency.

Check out "Chladni patterns" if you're interested.

Here's some pattrens for violin tops and circular plates:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/chladni.html
---
 
T

Tim Wescott

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
---
You can use a fundamental mode crystal as an overtone oscillator, but
even if you can get it to oscillate, it won't be generating an
overtone at 100MHz, since overtone modes of oscillation aren't
harmonically related to the fundamental. It's more like the slab of
crystal is vibrating like the drumhead of a steel drum with small
areas of the slab vibrating at higher frequencies, instead of the
entire slab virbarting at just one frequency.

Check out "Chladni patterns" if you're interested.

Here's some pattrens for violin tops and circular plates:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/chladni.html
---




---
Anybody who makes crystals ought to be able to help you out; here's a
start:

http://www.icmfg.com/

In an AT cut crystal the overtone modes are close, but not exactly on,
the odd harmonics of the fundamental. Furthermore, all of the
literature that I've read on AT cut crystals reports that they vibrate
in the bulk of the crystal, in shear mode -- see figure 7 here:
http://literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5965-7662E.pdf.

Perhaps you're thinking of SAW devices?
 
R

RST Engineering \(jw\)

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't know why off-the-shelf crystals are needed when Jan Crystal (Ft.
Myers FL) will make the crystal to your specifications in a few days for the
same amount of money. They can do fifth ot at 100 MHz. quite easily.

Jim
 
L

Larry Brasfield

Jan 1, 1970
0
in message ....
In an AT cut crystal the overtone modes are close, but not exactly on, the odd harmonics of the fundamental. Furthermore, all of
the literature that I've read on AT cut crystals reports that they vibrate in the bulk of the crystal, in shear mode -- see figure
7 here: http://literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5965-7662E.pdf.

One effect to watch out for with use of unspecified
overtone modes is that the behavior of the resonator
is not ideal; the presence or size of nearby spurs and
the Q depend on how uniform the thickness is that
determines frequency and the placement and size of
contact metal. The wavelength is typically much less
than the dimension along the non-shearing axis, so
having a single mode of resonance near the nominal
frequency or its overtones is not guaranteed, except
by careful construction and verification. So, clearly,
a guarantee about the behavior near the fundamental
resonance cannot be extended to the overtone modes.

If I was trying to build a stable and pure oscillator
operating at a crystal overtone, I would buy the
crystal specified for the overtone I would be using.
 
T

Tim Wescott

Jan 1, 1970
0
Larry said:
in message ...



One effect to watch out for with use of unspecified
overtone modes is that the behavior of the resonator
is not ideal; the presence or size of nearby spurs and
the Q depend on how uniform the thickness is that
determines frequency and the placement and size of
contact metal. The wavelength is typically much less
than the dimension along the non-shearing axis, so
having a single mode of resonance near the nominal
frequency or its overtones is not guaranteed, except
by careful construction and verification. So, clearly,
a guarantee about the behavior near the fundamental
resonance cannot be extended to the overtone modes.

If I was trying to build a stable and pure oscillator
operating at a crystal overtone, I would buy the
crystal specified for the overtone I would be using.
I pointed that out in a previous post. But hey -- wouldn't it be fun to
have an oscillator that yodels?
 
J

J M Noeding

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't know why off-the-shelf crystals are needed when Jan Crystal (Ft.
Myers FL) will make the crystal to your specifications in a few days for the
same amount of money. They can do fifth ot at 100 MHz. quite easily.

Jim
a CB xtal will probably operate on 100MHz, althouth I've only seen
applications for 45 and 81MHz

-jm
 
D

douglas dwyer

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim said:
Are "overtone" crystals cut differently than "fundamental" crystals?
Or are they just specified differently?

In particular, say I took a garden-variety 20MHz fundamental
microprocessor crystal and instead used it at its fifth overtone,
trying to hit 100 MHz. The LC network is there to make sure that it's
on its fifth overtone. Will this "misuse" mean that the oscillator
will be harder to start up, less stable, more noisy, ???, than a
crystal oscillator made out of a real overtone crystal? I don't mind
if I "miss" 100 MHz by a several tens or hundreds of ppm, as long as
it's stable there.

If anyone knows of a place that ships off-the-shelf 100 MHz fifth or
seventh overtone crystals, I can avoid this whole exercise.... :)

Tim.
Overtone crystals are mechanical resonators and the overtone shear mode
which has additional shear planes within the volume wont occupy exactly
the same volume as the fundamental so the frequency will not be exactly
3X or 5X the fundamental but approx 2000ppm high or low?
The fundamental crystal will not be so accurately polished or
dimensioned as the overtone so it will not go well if at all also it may
have higher levels of spurious.
 
F

Frank Moe

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim Shoppa said:
Are "overtone" crystals cut differently than "fundamental" crystals?
Or are they just specified differently?

In particular, say I took a garden-variety 20MHz fundamental
microprocessor crystal and instead used it at its fifth overtone,
trying to hit 100 MHz. The LC network is there to make sure that it's
on its fifth overtone. Will this "misuse" mean that the oscillator
will be harder to start up, less stable, more noisy, ???, than a
crystal oscillator made out of a real overtone crystal? I don't mind
if I "miss" 100 MHz by a several tens or hundreds of ppm, as long as
it's stable there.

If anyone knows of a place that ships off-the-shelf 100 MHz fifth or
seventh overtone crystals, I can avoid this whole exercise.... :)

Tim.


Tim,

to get optimum performance one would grind the 100MHz 5.OT finer or
even polish it, and the thickness of the electrodes might be different
to get optimum Q.
But you should be ok by using a 20MHz fundamental in its 5th.

There are also manufacturers that make 100 in fundamental (up to about
200MHz), and many should have 100 in 5th as standard part...

Frank
 
A

Active8

Jan 1, 1970
0
IIRC Digi-Key has 100MHz crystals, but I may be remembering 100MHz
oscillators. YMMV. IDNKWTFIAS. Caviat Emptor (so _that's_ what CE
means! Here I thought it was a quality mark). Etc.

Dialog news reader's tip popped up to say that CE is "creative
editing". It doesn't KWTF IDNKWTFIAS is, but I got everything but
the IAS part.
 
A

Active8

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't know why off-the-shelf crystals are needed when Jan Crystal (Ft.
Myers FL) will make the crystal to your specifications in a few days for the
same amount of money. They can do fifth ot at 100 MHz. quite easily.

Jim
Jan's what I was about to suggest. I thought the rock I needed would
have been off the shelf, but they made it and sent the test results.
 
T

Tim Wescott

Jan 1, 1970
0
Active8 said:
Dialog news reader's tip popped up to say that CE is "creative
editing". It doesn't KWTF IDNKWTFIAS is, but I got everything but
the IAS part.
IDNKWTFIAS: I Don't Know What I Am Saying.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Tim,

As Douglas said the frequency may be a bit off unless you get a crystal
made for 5th. An alternative for the 20MHz garden variety would be to
make a 20MHz oscillator, run it into a fast gate and fish out the 5th
the old fashioned way, with an LC circuit. Then run that through a gate
again if needed.

Regards, Joerg
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
IIRC Digi-Key has 100MHz crystals, but I may be remembering 100MHz
oscillators. YMMV. IDNKWTFIAS. Caviat Emptor (so _that's_ what CE ----------
means! Here I thought it was a quality mark). Etc.

I Do Not Know WTF I Am Saying?

Thanks,
Rich
 
R

RST Engineering

Jan 1, 1970
0
That is total and absolute bullpuckey.

Jim
 
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