All posts tagged Racal-Dana

Racal-Dana 199x DIY High Stability DIY Timebase Hack for under $25

Racal-Dana 199x DIY High Stability DIY Timebase Hack for under $25

By gerrysweeney on 32 Comments

Having played with a number of OCXO’s and a Rubidium standard I tried (after repairing it) to calibrate the standard timebase in my Racal-Dana 1999 counter which is actually a simple TCXO. I could get pretty close but it was touchy and not easy to be totally precise. In response to that vlog article a number of people suggested it would be nice to do an OCXO modification to the Racal counter so I decided to do exactly that, and I done it on a budget too…

One of the problems with this counter is the lack of any 12v supply that is able to provide enough current to drive the OCXO’s oven, so I had a look around and found an OCXO made by Isotemp model OCXO131-100 that runs on 5V which is perfect for this build because the counter has a good 5v supply that can easily drive the additional current required – I have provided a download link for the data sheet for the OCXO I used below below. I ordered one from a seller on e-bay and used that as the basis for the hack.

The other key component needed to implement a stable OCXO board for this counter is a “temperature stable” variable voltage between about 1 and 4 volts, this is used to fine tune the OCXO to allow the oscillator to be calibrated. To get me a suitable reference voltage I have used a MAX6198A, chosen simply because I had some to hand – but also because they have pretty darn good temperature stability too.

Schematic

Here is the schematic I used to create the OCXO board.
Racal-Dana-OCXO-Mod

Other Information

* The SMD Adaptors I used can be got from here: SMD Adapters – Set #1/

Racal-Dana 1999 Teardown, Repair and Calibration

By gerrysweeney on 25 Comments

I have been using this Racal-Dana 1999 counter for a long time and in the last few months it started to suffer from an intermittent fault where it would appear to freeze and stop responding. Banging the unit on the side with the palm of my hand would get it going again, and when doing this it would often restart as if its been powered on. In addition to this fault, the counter suffers from an altogether common problem with the buttons on the front which loose any tactile feel to them and become difficult to actuate – this is a common problem on these counters and thats down to the poorly designed switches Racal used for its frequency counter range.

I identify the fault and fix the problem and I replace all the buttons with ones that work and end up with a fully restored frequency counter once again.

I have made the manual including schematics available in the attachments section of this article for your convenience

See you next time….

I Need 10MHz – how hard can it be!

By gerrysweeney on 37 Comments

It all started when I wanted to calibrate my HP 53131A universal counter, which as it turns out probably has one of the crappiest and most disappointing standard oscillators ever put into a frequency counter, HP you should bow your head in shame….oh of course I forgot, a half reasonable oscillator is an “optional extra” when you by HP/Agilent – of course it is….anyway, on with the job at hand

If you have or want to play with an FE-5680A Rubidium Frequency Standard or an OSCILLOQUARTZ OCXO 8663-XS or a HP 53131A Counter or a Racal Dana 1999 counter or similar then this video will most likely be of interest 🙂 what I am trying to get is a predicable and reliable frequency and standard for my home lab.

I guess I will let the video do the talking on this one….

Here are a whole bunch of useful links that relate to this video (there are many more too if you search around the web)

Thanks to all of the authors and content creators for the above information. Thanks for watching.