Kits and things – Page 4 – AB4UG Radioblog

Etherkit Si5351A breakout board three ways

Finished assembling the last of the Etherkit Si5351A breakout boards I received from Jason‘s Indiegogo campaign. Since I had three of them to play with, I decided to do a few different configurations.

Board #1 is a pretty conventional setup with the header pins pointing up. Lays flat on a surface and could be mounted inside an enclosure if needed.

Etherkit Si5351 board with conventional pin layout

Board #2 I used female header pins to make interfacing with my *duino boards easier, since almost all the jumper wires I have are male/male.

Etherkit Si5351 board using female connector pins

Board #3 I set up to make it easy to use with breadboards. The header pins are pointed “down” so that I can stick the breakout board into a regular breadboard. I also added female headers to the output in addition to the SMA connectors.

Etherkit Si5351 board with pins down for breadboard use

I still need to test the boards out to make sure they actually work. I think if I’m going to have any problems with the boards, it will probably be with the soldering of the Si5351A chip.

Building the Etherkit Si5351 breakout board

Spent some time at the workbench putting together the Etherkit Si5351 board that arrived the other day.

Although it’s pretty much all surface mount, everything is on one side of the board, and the part count is relatively low so assembly is pretty easy. The fine pitch of the Si5351 chip makes soldering it more challenging, but generous use of solder flux helped the solder flow where it was supposed to go.

After the Si5351 came the TCXO crystal. The large pads make this part relatively easy to solder.

The transistors and 3.3V voltage regulator were the next components to get soldered on. These were pretty easy to do. As with the Si5351, a good amount of solder flux helps with the voltage regulator.

The remaining passive components (4 capacitors and 4 resistors) finish up the surface mount components. These are pretty easy to solder on. Tack down one side with a bit of solder, then solder the other side.

With all the surface mount components on the board, that leaves just the header pins and the edge mount SMA connectors. Easy peasy.

And with that, the Etherkit Si5351 breakout board is finished! Next step is to connect it up to one of my *duinos and see if it works.

I have two more boards to assemble, and some of the things I learned assembling this one should make the other two a little smoother.

Si5351 breakout boards arrived!

The Etherkit Si5351 breakout boards finally arrived!

It took ~~the Pony Express~~USPS 13 days to deliver the package from Oregon to South Carolina. According to USPS tracking, it took 7 days for the package to surface in Ft. Worth TX. Then it disappeared for another 5 days before resurfacing in Columbia SC and then being delivered to the house the next day. Using Google Maps to get a rough idea of the distance, the package traveled about 3100 miles in 13 days, or about 10 miles/hour.

I’m looking forward to assembling the boards. Jason did a really good job with the boards. I think the most challenging part will be soldering on the Si5351 chip itself. It’s a pretty tiny piece.

Si5351 breakout board (banana for scale)

I don’t have any plans for the breakout boards yet, but there are the usual suspects: SWR meter/antenna analyzer, signal generator, and maybe eventually a radio.

Pictures of the assembly coming up.

Si5351 breakout board

Jason/NT7S launched the crowdfunding campaign for his version of an Si5351 breakout board last night, and already this morning it’s at over 150%. The stretch goal at $1 500 involves spending some more time on the software library to make the board easier to use.

It’s a neat little oscillator chip that seems to provide a lot of capabilities for not a lot of money. He’s been documenting his investigations on the chip at his blog for the past year now, including building a couple of receivers and transceivers around the Si5351.

The Si5351A is quite a capable IC at a very modest price. It is a PLL clock generator with three independent outputs which can each generate a separate signal from 8 kHz to 160 MHz. A 25 or 27 MHz reference oscillator is used for the two internal PLLs (the Etherkit breakout board uses a 25 MHz reference oscillator), which allows the user to choose the amount of frequency stability and accuracy required.

Go check out the Si5351 breakout board campaign on Indiegogo, and pick one up if it’s something you’ll find useful in an upcoming project.

CC1 enclosure

My CC1 is finally in its enclosure!

The templates for the faceplates I made worked out pretty well. The holes weren’t perfect, but I blame that on using a drill to make the holes. Would have been much easier if I had a drill press, or ideally a hole punch. For the BNC hole, I didn’t have a 1/4″ drill bit so I just used a 3/8″ bit (the largest I had) and my Dremel with a sanding drum to enlarge the hole.

Looks pretty good in its enclosure I think. Now I need to put some labels on it.