Crystal vs. Ceramic Resonator

[Carel_Integrated]

1.) What are the difference betwwen a Crystal and a Ceramic Resonator?
2.) Which one will be the best to use in a circuit such as an MP3 Player / CD / DVD Player / Timer?

 

[Number17]

Crystal needs caps. A Resonator already has the required capactiors.

 

[Carel_Integrated]

well, not all resonators come with built in capacitors. I heard they are not accurate, so maybe the Crystal is better {more accurate}?

 

[dknguyen]

Terminology boondoggle. Apparently a resonator is the key component in an oscillator. So...crystal resonators vs ceramic resonators.

Crystal is the most accurate (of anything really short of an atomic clock). But they are more expensive too because they are harder to make. Ceramic resonators are easier to make and therefore cheaper and often come packaged with the capacitors already making things even more convenient. Crystal oscillators with everything packaged...really expensive.

 

[Carel_Integrated]

Yes, I mean a Ceramic Resonator. I'm trying to repair a CD Player... The CD Player has 2x Ceramic Resonators.

The 1st Ceramic Resonator are 8Mhz & is used for the Timer of the LCD {Hours:Minutes:Seconds}. The Timer isn't very accurate...

The 2nd Ceramic Resonator is used for the Processor's timing. It's 16.94Mhz. This will determine the speed the MP3 / CD plays at. I've found that with the Ceramic Resonator the Processor doesn't encode MP3s / CDs that well.

I was experimenting with it, so I accidently broke of one of the Ceramic Resonator's pins... Both of these Ceramic resonators are the 2-pin type, so the capacitors are on the circuit board itself, they are not built into the ceramic Resonators. I want better accuracy, as the Ceramic Resonators are not very accurate.

 

[kchriste]

I want better accuracy, as the Ceramic Resonators are not very accurate.

A crystal will be more stable than a ceramic resonator as already pointed out. However, the frequency accuracy of a crystal will have to be trimmed with a variable capacitor. You'll also need an accurate frequency counter to tune it. Just throwing a crystal into the circuit and calling it done, isn't going to give you accuracy.

 

[Carel_Integrated]

Ok, I found a Crystal. 16.9344Mhz & I've replaced it in the place of the Ceramic Resonator, it seems to be working 100% stable & accurate. There are 2x capacitors on the PCB itself, so no need to worry about capacitors... The MP3 / CD Player is working fine now. With 14Mhz it plays very, very slow... With 20Mhz it plays extremely fast. With the correct 16.9344Mhz Crystal, it is playing 100% on-time. I just need to find another Crystal for the LCD Timer. This is a cheapo MP3 / CD Player. The Timer is a separate device from the MP3 / CD Encoder, thus it's not very accurate anyways, in reality, the Timer and the real MP3 file's time are not synchronised.