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FE-5680A Rubidium Frequency Standard – Initial Teardown

Physics Package
Physics Package

Here is a quick look inside the FE-5060A Rubidium Frequency Standard. Above you can see the entire physics package, with the rubidium lamp housing on the right hand side. The ribbon cable running into the resonator cavity has the power & signal traces for the internal heater, temperature sensor & Helmholtz coil.

Lamp End
Lamp End

Here is the lamp end of the physics package, with the voltage regulator & RF driver for the lamp. The FETs soldered to the back of the housing are being used as heaters to maintain a constant temperature on the lamp in operation.
The temperature sensor can be seen between the two FETs, with a single copper wire running around the housing to connect to it.

Main frequency synth board. This contains the RS-232 interface & the AD9830A from Analog Devices. This IC is a direct digital synthesizer & waveform generator.

 

Synthesizer Board
Synthesizer Board