Steve, Most likely you will not see a difference (unless you spent like 10-30 seconds heating it up with your soldering iron). I don't know which Elecraft kit you are talking about, but consider this.
Grounding crystals at the side will give you better decoupling under SOME circumstances (like proper ground plane in the PCB, relatively close and regular location of other crystals around, absence of other sources of signal coupling nearby like another PCB or a signal trace with a strong signal in it). Otherwise you will get so marginal benefit that you will not notice it considering the tolerances of all the parts. Also, sometimes the clearances between different parts are too tight and you simply might not have enough space to ground crystals at the top of the can because the grounding wire would touch some other part otherwise. On the other hand, grounding at the top of the crystal somewhat decreases the chance of overheating said crystal while soldering. Not that it's a problem - it is easily handled if one is proficient with soldering iron (and picks the right tool for the job, i.e. the appropriate wattage/temperature iron), but for inexperienced builder it is safer to ground at the top. Dear readers, please, forgive me the lecturing tone - I felt like goofing out tonight. On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:51 PM, W6EOD <[email protected]> wrote: > I got a little ahead of myself while grounding crystals X1, 3 and 5. I > grounded to the sides. Is this a problem. Should I add wire to take the > ground to the top of the can? > > Steve W6EOD > > -- Alexey Kats (neko) ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
