Buddy inspired me with his posting of the Chrystal Tester that Alan posted. So, I dove into it head first. Home brew equipment is not real easy. I think the hardest part is laying out the parts on the circuit board. I used an old board from years ago when I was first learning to etch my own boards. I don't recommend etching your own boards unless it is for a really special and easy project that you will need to duplicate many times over.
I used what some call the "Manhattan style" board construction. In one of the photos you will see the little island circles. They are cut out of scrap, single sided, circuit board material. You just figure out where you want them and glue them to a blank or like I used, the bare side of an old left over board. You can see them in the photos. I used very slow drying super-glue to glue them in place.
Figuring out where to place the islands is the hardest part. One tip to making it a little easier is to basically lay out the parts just like they are on the schematic diagram. Wherever you have multiple parts to attach at a common point is a good place to put an island. Be careful though, you can get an island with too many connections on it and that makes it difficult to solder them all in place without messing up the other connections on the same island.
Before you start gluing the islands on the board you should lightly sand the side of the board you are gluing them to. Just rough it up a little. This gives the glue a good surface to stick to.
You don't have to use the perfect round islands like I did. I just happened to have a bunch of them in my junque box that I picked up at a ham-fest some time ago. After you glue all the islands in place it helps to tin all the islands before you start soldering parts to them.
I mounted most of the resistors vertically so they would take up less space. The capacitors I used are all from the junque box and that is why the .02 caps were disc ceramic and the 470 pf are tantalum caps. They are all the right value but just different in size. I wasn't too worried about using NPO caps for this oscillator circuit because it is for testing crystals which are inherently stable.
At first I was going to install the board in an Altoids tin. But, even though it would fit okay, it was just too small to fit all the connectors and such that I want mounted on a front or back panel. So I am using a small clam-shell case. Another item from my junque box. The difference between Junque and Junk is that the items in the junque box are much more fancy. LOL.
Well, there you have it. I am really pleased with this little circuit and test box. It works on the bench. Now all I have to do is get out the drills and make holes for the power, and output connectors and the crystal socket. I'm not real happy with the connectors I have for the crystal socket. They are the small, probe type connectors. I think something with a little better holding power would be much better.
Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or corrections.
73 Frank de K7RMJ