Hi,
I have a bunch of crystal oscillators that I managed to cannibalize from a bunch of clocks and watches and I have no idea what frequency they are on. I was told that I need a oscilloscope to read them and I had a look around and there seems to be work of converting an Arduino into a oscilloscope ( http://accrochages.drone.ws/en/node/90 ). What I dont understand here is where do I put the crystal oscillators in? Which pins (on the arduino) does it require?
Thanks!
Most quartz crystal clocks use a 32768Hz crystal (this divides evenly down to one hertz). Google turns up a number of circuits for using these to generate ttl pulses, try keywords like: 32768 crystal oscillator
Ok, some of the ones I have look similar to the 32768 crystal on google and some of them dont. How do I determine what they are using the arduino? I know there are multimeters that can measure this, but I was wondering if there is a simple solution that I can make rather than buy.
How do I determine what they are using the arduino?
I don't understand your question.
Can you say more about what you want to do?
So I have a bunch of crystal oscillators that have no writing on them whatsoever and I want to find out what their specification are.
I know some multimeter can do this but I was wondering if I could use the arduino as a multimeter to measure them.
I know the arduino can be made into an oscilloscope but I have no clue how to extend it.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
To find the rsonant frequency of a crystal, you will first need to make it oscillate. This will require a couple of logic gates wired to the crystal (circuits for this can be found: look for "crystal clock oscillator"). Then, you'll need a frequency meter to measure the frequency that you get from the oscillator. Some multimeters do this, and you could use an oscilloscope, or a frequency meter instrument. There are ways to use an Arduino as an oscilloscope, but they are limited in their frequency response. You might find one that will work as high as 32,768kHz but many are limited to audio frequencies (as are many PC soundcards). You may have better luck with an Arduino frequency meter, but if your crystals are above about 1MHz, you will probably need a proper frequency meter. Such device do show up on eBay quite often, sometimes for low prices, or you may be able to borrow one (amateur radio operators use them).
If the Arduino is running with a clock of 4Mhz then what is the limiting factor on having it measure frequency?
Am I correct in assuming that Arduino programs "sketches" are compiled so should be almost as fast as assembler is it just not possible to write code in such a way to be able to measure frequency above a few Khz?