[Rickertsen2]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

we keep switching words here between crystal, oscillator and (ceramic) resonator.

these are three different things

if you really feel overwhelmed by getting the crystal circuit right, you can buy oscillator packages in surface mount or DIP packages. these have a crystal and buffer circuit inside, all you need to do is put power and gnd on two pins, and a squarewave clock comes out the output pin.

Some also have an 'enable' pin that allows you to turn it off, if you want to run in standby or lowpower mode.

If you are building a one of a kind board, and you dont want to waste time messing with the crystal or ceramic resonator to get it to run, just get an oscillator device. They are not that expensive, esp considering the amount of time they might potentially save you.

DigiKey sells these too.

Really i havn't been confusing Ceramic, and crystal, but i may have used oscillator in place of crystal. I am still unclear whether or not i can use 40mhz clock sources with the PIC or if i must use a 10mhz clock source and the PIC's PLL to acheive 40Mhz. To be safe i went w/a 10mhz crystal and the PLL for my final design. I was looking at the oscillator things you spoke of. They look REALLY simple. I will have to keep those in mind for future projects.