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EEVblog #646 - Gravity Detection Using A Frequency Counter!

14 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
Cited on HN 5 times, 2014–2023, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN links it as a hands-on demonstration that oscillator frequency depends on orientation relative to gravity.

Dave Jones of EEVblog demonstrates that a frequency counter can detect gravity through the 2g tipover effect on quartz crystal oscillators. He shows the reading shift as the instrument's orientation changes.

“Demonstration” (HN, 2023)

5 citations · Demos · intermediate

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@comboy May 2015 Cites it
on HN thread 1 second per second is harder than it sounds (2014)
My bad, I was before my coffee. One additional thing that wasn't yet mentioned is that freqency depends also on gravitation, so orientation of your motherboard could matter (for the curious - [this video] ). I'm not really sure it's big enough to matter though.
Frequency depends on orientation
@SamReidHughes Jan 2019 Cites it
on HN thread Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)
The Zenith Defy Lab watch has accuracy of -0.5/+0.5 seconds per day, which matches and/or beats quartz watches (that aren't thermocompensated). Rolexes, which have a classical movement design, are pretty close, promising -2/+2 spd. Quartz watches' accuracy also varies depending on orientation, for what it's worth. (It has an effect on the order of 1-2 seconds per year.) Related EEVBlog link: [this video]
Related to orientation effects on quartz
@gugagore Feb 2019 Cites it
on HN thread TI Claims Breakthrough in BAW On-Die-Oscillators
Read more
Maybe if you can show me that if you flick an RC oscillator you can detect it, then I'll believe it's a silly distinction. Or if RC oscillators can detect gravity: [this video] I'm also curious what it would mean to you for two things to be doing "fundamentally different" things. Do you believe in the difference between a mechanical oscillator and an electrical oscillator? Mechanical oscillators like a spring/mass exchange energy between kinetic and electrical energy (a moving mass and a strained material). An RC oscillator exchanges energy between elements that store energy in an electric field and a magnetic field. That feels fundamentally different even in a four-fundamental-forces kind of manner.
Oscillator gravity sensitivity
@formerly_proven Nov 2023 Cites it
on HN thread Why the Position of a Watch Influences Accuracy (2020)
> Typical crystal acceleration sensitivities will range from about 1 x 10-10 per g for specially constructed precision SC-cut and AT-cut resonators to the order of 10-7 per g for tuning fork resonators. [link] Demonstration: [this video]
Demonstration of crystal acceleration sensitivity

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