Build a Crystal Oscillator in 10 minutes 

WATCH THIS VIDEO if you are trying to build a crystal oscillator for the 1st time! The schematic and component PDF in the video description is INVALUABLE ! Picked out my parts, poked them in a breadboard and BINGO got a decent sine wave in about 10 minutes! The work you put in your test equipment and PDF can't be appreciated enough! Thank you.

Other folks have already expressed my thoughts in the comments but your vid deserves another comment. I’ve been struggling with this exact goal - but I was assuming I’d get a prefect sin wave Lesson learned!

If you get a xtal of unknown freq. Get a signal generator, set on sine wave, 5v output and start at some frequency. setup an oscilloscope, and connect the gnd from the signal generator output to the ground on the channel 1 probe. now connect the signal generator + output into one leg of the xtal, and the oscilloscope probe to the other leg. slowly raise the frequency until you get a sudden jump in your Peak to Peak voltage way above the 5volts you put in, and you've found the freq. via resonance.

There's not much to be found regarding getting random crystals to oscillate properly. Good video, thanks!

Easier and more reliable circuit is the pierce oscillator - crystal between base and collector. try a 1k in collector and 47k to 100k between collector and base. Works great. no capacitors needed unless you want plus will drive TTL or microprocessor clocks. 2n3904 works great. most small npns will work. Emitter is directly grounded and several volts p-p on collector for TTL. Amplitude and symmetry can be adjusted by varying the bias resistor. Higher frequencies benefit from lower load resitor and bias resistor.

Really well explained and easy to follow, thank-you! 👍😀

Boy, im a mid-life career change engineering student. I am building a 7-segment decoder from scratch based on core rope memory. I have everything working but need a clock. Was considering 555 oscilator bit wanted experience getting a crystal to oscillate. I followed your example to the T (maybe 1% or 2% off your actual values in the table) and can not get any oscillations. This leaves me with two questions. 1. How would you test a crystal in the first place to see if it functions properly. 2. How would you go about troubleshooting the circuit when there are 0 oscillations? What components are most important/sensitive?

Thank you very very much from Olinda/Brasil!!! I'm so greatful

Great video

Absolutely brilliant

Excellent.

there are some really simple circuits using CMOS inverters like 74HCU04, you get buffered output that essentially swing rail to rail, one chip, one resistor two capacitor, very simple no testing.

Is the crystal natural or synthetic? Cool stuff!

Did you build the capacitor substitution board or buy it? It looks more versatile than most as I suspect you could tap into more than one value at a time because of the rails down the center.

Great video, thanks. Would it be possible to get a link to the nifty tester you used to for the crystal? Is there a source for the capacitor test board you used or is that homebrew? Very handy! Anyway, thanks again.

One small point, the Emitter follower circuit has a gain of less than unity! no amplification.

Hi, Why the connection from the transistor back to the crystal circuit ? what's the need for it ?

Interesting, IMSAI Guy's colpitts circuit has the capacitor divider going into the emitter. I wonder what the tradeoffs of the two similar but different topologies are.

Can i use 2n3055 transistor

Hi, would it be possible to get in contact with you regarding an rc remote project?

Your stuff is good, but this protoboard is not good for made RF oscillators since it has non negigeable parasitic capacitance.