USB FM RDS Solution with sofware - Page 21

Bj · 06-02-2007, 07:58 AM

it looks to me that you have a short from the active to the ground pcb plane in this photo

bimmerpc · 06-02-2007, 08:11 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Bj

it looks to me that you have a short from the active to the ground pcb plane in this photo

"active to the ground pcb plane" means excactly ?

(Pardom my not native english...)

Anyway can I solve that without buying extra components?

Bj · 06-02-2007, 08:32 AM

the centre core of your coax (antenna cable) has solder going to the edge of the board (multi layer board) and is most likely touching the ground plane (another track that is ground) and shorting it out. If you have a mulitimeter check that the antenna leads test open circuit between the coax centre cable and the shield. There is already a capacitor on the Silabs board to isolate the RX chip from the antenna, so you should see no DC path between the tip of your motorola and the shield.

grayvader · 06-02-2007, 06:14 PM

As a note, I also had similar issues with one of these that I messed with. I think I screwed up something internal because it was intermittant after attaching the antenna. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it would do what you described. I suspect that something else (besides the antenna parts) got messed up. I ended up getting a new one and exercised EXTREME care when i attached the new antenna.

bimmerpc · 06-02-2007, 07:17 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by grayvader

As a note, I also had similar issues with one of these that I messed with. I think I screwed up something internal because it was intermittant after attaching the antenna. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it would do what you described. I suspect that something else (besides the antenna parts) got messed up. I ended up getting a new one and exercised EXTREME care when i attached the new antenna.

Yeah, I was a bit flimsy with my hand, not much practice before getting onto this chip

so I guess the solder iron was touching the pad for a very long time and the board surface looks all messy around the holes

Anyway, does it matter if I have the male lead intact and cut away the female part of the motorola cable or shoule I do it the other way and buy a new cable to cut the male end instead?

bimmerpc · 06-07-2007, 03:02 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by bimmerpc

Yeah, I was a bit flimsy with my hand, not much practice before getting onto this chip

so I guess the solder iron was touching the pad for a very long time and the board surface looks all messy around the holes

Anyway, does it matter if I have the male lead intact and cut away the female part of the motorola cable or shoule I do it the other way and buy a new cable to cut the male end instead?

I had some electricians looking at the unit and they could not see any specific short circuit or anything. They measured with a multimeter or what ever they are called. No short. They even resoldered it a couple of times. I Must have destroyed some of the components so I´m ordering one more

-Stomp- · 06-07-2007, 03:43 PM

Has someone a direct link where I can buy it, and does they sent it to Denmark? Would like to give it a try...

ShawJohn · 06-08-2007, 12:13 PM

I bought mine from Azzumi but if you go to www.silabs.com/usbradio there should be a link to a seller near you

stryke23x · 06-08-2007, 11:21 PM

has anyone played with the source code for this at all? I think this would work great for what I need, but I need to make it bigger. I have an 8" 16:9 touch screen molded in my dash. I'm pretty good at graphic design and want to do a new full screen skin for this to match the Digital Dash software I'm using. The only thing I don't know how to do is then modify the source to work with the newly changed size skin. Anyone interested in working on that?

John

ShawJohn · 06-09-2007, 03:45 PM

it is already integrated into RR and CF! Why re-invent the wheel?

stryke23x · 06-10-2007, 12:23 AM

I don't see it in RR and didn't like CF myself. For RR all i see is radiator, dlink, cinergy 600, wintv, hqct, blaupunkt and radioshark. am i missing something?

John

ShawJohn · 06-10-2007, 09:14 AM

CDRSKULL has integrated it into Freedom Ultimate, and it is now listed as a Radio device in an updated RRConfig file which was posted up recently.

It is also listed as a radio device in CF from 1.14>

I think Giuno has now built Silabs capability into RR

The Silabs will not work with Vista though as of yet, needs some fiddling as the Silabs software is fine, but release notes mention a modification to make it Vista Compatible, something to do with the New Vista Mixer from what I can gather.

ccsnet · 06-10-2007, 09:19 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by ShawJohn

The Silabs will not work with Vista though as of yet, needs some fiddling as the Silabs software is fine, but release notes mention a modification to make it Vista Compatible, something to do with the New Vista Mixer from what I can gather.

John - I've said this before - its does... I've used it under Vista...

Terran

ShawJohn · 06-10-2007, 12:55 PM

It works fine in Vista with its own software, which has been patched for Vista, but using the RR & CF stuff thats about it refuses to do anything

Maybe you can suggest where Im going wrong, as if I can't sort this out in the next few days I'll be forced to re-install XP Pro, which would be a shame as I managed to get TomTom working pretty sweetly under Vista

Lithoss · 07-07-2007, 04:38 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Bj

Otherwise make sure you use a capacitor to couple the antenna if you have a powered (amplified) car antenna and prevent the earth loop problem on the usb radio. Use something like a 47pf ceramic cap between the antenna hole on the PCB and the centre of your coax. Leave the coax shield attached the the ground pad of the board.

has anyone had any success with this for a powered antenna? my subaru has a powered antenna, just wanted to check to see if anyone has done this yet before i rip apart my silabs.

also, the smallest capacitor i can find commonly is 100pf.. here... think thats close enough? why 47pf anyway? thanks guys