alt Hacker NewsI've always been cautioned against ultrasonic cleaning of boards that have crystal oscillators, and indeed it's in most XO datasheets.
I've also heard that one shouldn't trim the leads of a through-hole XO before soldering it into the board, since the mechanical shock of the lead breaking can ring the whole package and similarly shake it apart. I'm curious if anyone here has seen that in practice!
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On the other hand I heard that one shouldn't trim leads after soldering as it might crack solder joints...
I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago, and couldn't find an actionable answer on if this is OK or not. Sounded like "No, you shouldn't", but almost every PCB I've designed (or used?) has at least one, and I know ultrasonic cleaning is a thing, so I'm not sure how to reconcile these.
Oh, that's a good one, I can see how that would put a lot of g's on the package. I think this will be a factor depending on the weight of the total assembly. If that weight is significant it will dampen the shockwave.
> I've also heard that one shouldn't trim the leads of a through-hole XO before soldering it into the board, since the mechanical shock of the lead breaking can ring the whole package and similarly shake it apart. I'm curious if anyone here has seen that in practice!
I’ve never put a through hole crystal into production so I can’t say anything about this conjecture.
However the larger surface mount crystals are not hard to hand solder if you get a package with side wettable flanks and make the pads reasonably large. It’s something I’d recommend considering.