Author Topic: Replace or repair oscillator in HP 5245M?  (Read 763 times)

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Offline deafenTopic starter

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Replace or repair oscillator in HP 5245M?
« on: October 01, 2022, 12:20:07 pm »
I picked up this cool nixie counter recently and finally tested it last night. It works great, but only with an external clock source, and there are several wires around the oven that are disconnected or cut and taped. I'm assuming that means that the oscillator malfunctioned, and the last owner used an external clock and disconnected the oven to save the heat.

I don't use a central time source, so my options seem to be to repair the stock oscillator, or leave it unhooked and jimmy in an oscillator IC. I know that the 5245M's big claim to fame is the stability and accuracy of the oscillator, but frankly I dabble in AF and don't have much use for ppms. (I was also going to play around with using a voltage to frequency converter to use it as an absurd voltmeter.)

Am I correct in thinking that I should just run a cheap clock oscillator and be done with it?
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Replace or repair oscillator in HP 5245M?
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2022, 01:50:40 pm »
You can get reasonable OCXOs on eBay, presumably removed from equipment in the Far East.
 
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Offline deafenTopic starter

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Re: Replace or repair oscillator in HP 5245M?
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2022, 02:31:18 pm »
Hadn't even considered that, glad I asked! What would you consider to be a reasonable OCXO? There are used branded ones that are just the OCXO itself for around $25 shipped (https://www.ebay.com/itm/403749293289), or there are new ones with an unlabeled component, but a complete board including freq adjustment for a little less (https://www.ebay.com/itm/394198674605 - also does both TTL and sine, and I don't know which I need).
 


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