Yes, I hit one of those. I forget the frequency other than around 1 MHz, but it 
was pretty warm when it shouldn't have been, and it was several volts amplitude.

This thing I'm chasing is much more subtle.

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chuck Harris
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:57 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Totally unrelated, but..

I don't think so.  I first ran into a batch of LM340-5's that were excellent 
oscillators back in the 1970's... long before counterfeiting was even remotely 
possible.

The symptom is the regulator puts out only 4.5 out of 5V.

LM309's were, however, totally immune.

Usually, I had to be really bad to make it happen, things like using clip leads 
between the power supply and load with the LM340-5 dangling in between.

The answer is as simple as a couple of 0.1uf ceramic caps soldered right at the 
input and ground, and the output and ground pins.

LDO (low dropout) regulators are very susceptible to oscillation.  They need to 
have a couple of hundred uf of good quality capacitance right on the input and 
output leads.  Where people usually get in trouble, is in not knowing that 
electrolytic capacitors lose most of their capacitance as the temperature 
starts hovering around 0C.

The circuit works great on the bench, but fails when out hanging on a light 
pole...

-Chuck Harris

Joe Leikhim wrote:
> Could the low noise parts actually be counterfeit, relabeled as such?
> 
> Is the circuit the regulator feeds sensitive to a narrow band of 
> voltage that the "good regulator" is outside of?
> 
> Try replacing the regulator with a battery supply and resistor divider 
> to attain the working voltage. Move the voltage around. A good 
> potentiometer and stiff filter capacitors are recommended so as not to 
> introduce "pot noise".
> 
> Is something corrupting your test procedure?  I had a circuit that 
> misbehaved due to floating logic pins reacting to static electricity 
> on the work bench. Another time a diode was photosensitive.
> 
> 
> 
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