Schematic Reference

Thrifty 2Hz Clock

CMOS circuits are known for their low current consumption. This is particularly important for battery-powered circuits. Unfortunately, oscillators often require quite a bit of current. We therefore propose this oscillator circuit that has a very low current consumption (about 3 µA). The circuit is powered from a type LM334Z current source. The current has been set with R4 to about 3 µA. This is sufficient to power IC1 and the oscillator circuit around X1. The oscillator generates, with the aid of a cheap watch crystal and a few surrounding parts, a signal that is subsequently applied to the divider in the 4060 and results in a frequency of 2 Hz at pin 3 (output Q13). The level of the output pulses is a lot lower than the nominal 5-V power supply voltage (IC1 is after all powered from a current source with very low current). That is why the signal on pin 3 of IC1 is amplified and inverted by T1. IC3a finally turns it into a proper square wave with acceptably steep edges.