Spehro, It does sound like a "cold" solder/weld joint on the lead.....however, I'd like to pass on a bit of "crystal" experiment of my own. Years ago, I bought a VCR that had a clock that ran about an hour fast every day. My previous wife said "your an electronics technician, fix it". Thinking about it, I remembered an old electronics project book that had a clock with a CD4049 divide by "N" chip and a crystal. I looked inside and saw two TV colorburst crystals. Sure enough, there was a CD4049 next to one of them. I took a screwdriver tip and knocked very hard on the crystal case and put the VCR back together. Sure enough, the clock then worked accurately. The crystal was operating in a second mode of resonance. I went to work and told some other people this story and got alot of skeptical comments from one guy. About 3 months later, same person humbly told me he had worked on a similiar VCR with the same problem and that had been the fix. Regards, Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Spehro Pefhany" To: Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:19 AM Subject: Re: [PIC]: Oscillator leads > At 12:31 AM 8/17/01 +0100, you wrote: > >Absolutely, I thought the crystal would fail immediately. However, I'm now > >in the situation that the oscillator only oscillates if I push it slightly > >sideways. It then clicks and starts oscillating. I've checked and resoldered > >it and the contact is good. I can only conclude that there is an intermitent > >contact internally. When I push it sideways I even use insulated probes so > >capacitance/resistance shouldn't be the answer. The clicking noise makes me > >think more mechanical...... > > Sounds like you fractured ("busted" to be technical about it) the glass-metal > seal on a lead. Sure you (or someone else) didn't crank the body of the > crystal > around, stressing the leads (after soldering)? Maybe in a misplaced attempt > to straighten it so it looked good? Just a though.. > > Best regards, > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- = > Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" > speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com > Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com > Contributions invited->The AVR-gcc FAQ is at: http://www.bluecollarlinux.com > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- = > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics > (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics