Which resonator is best

[Acetronics2]

Hi,

The main problem is not run time, but ON/OFF powering count and "violence" ...

design carefully your power supplies, take care of your I/Os , use the "cool startup" features now provided, and your Pics will last ... How much is the MTBF given in Dave's document ???

LOL !!!

Alain

[mackrackit]

The biggest heat problem i have will be my pinball machine. There are so many lights under the playfield and in the ones ive done in the past it gets quite warm in there but i dont think its enough to harm anything.

If you are worried about heat, get the industrial version. The 16F877A for example will handle 85C. Check the end of the data sheet for the PIC you plan to use.

And like Alain, design carefully.

[T.Jackson]

The difference is negligible, but it is important to be aware that a difference does exist. We're talking nano watts of power with many integrated circuits, (increased thermal dissipation is negligible) but if we were to turn the subject into say watts then difference could become very significant.

[The Master]

Whats MTFB? Im guessing mean time before failure and yeah, they seem to last quite a long time.

Im not that concerned about heat. My pinball is probably the hottest place they will go and that should never go above about 30 degrees even on a hot day (yeah, our hot days are about 15 degrees!)

The on/off count i expect to be high while testing things. I always put safety switches on to cut the power to the whole playfield as soon as you lift it up and i do tend to turn things on and off a lot when im testing (maybe a few times a minute). Once everythings up and running i expect they will stay on most of the time (might turn it off at night).

How do i take care of I/Os? All my outputs will go directly into some driver chips and the inputs will go to switches with a 10K grounding resistor. Is that fine?

Whats cool startup?