SBE Sidebander VI PLL problem

[nomadradio]

Hmm. Used the "Pro-Mini" and not the "Nano" controller.

Had to do that when Windows update started assassinating "Nano" boards that had bootleg USB chips on them.

Rock on!

73

 

[TM86]

Hmm. Used the "Pro-Mini" and not the "Nano" controller.

Had to do that when Windows update started assassinating "Nano" boards that had bootleg USB chips on them.

Rock on!

73

I vaguely remember the stories of Nanos getting zapped, but that wasn't the reason for my choice of part. I use the Pro-Mini because I'm cheap.

 

[TM86]

I think this is the last post I'll be doing on this radio. Which for some of you I'm sure is the best part of this post.

Things did not fit together the way I thought they should. Then there was that wonky channel display problem, which turned out to be a broken trace with a floating solder pad. Which meant moving or reterminating that wire. And since I was going to have to tear stuff apart...

Built a second board, this time I copied the VCO buffer amp circuit and moved a few other components around to accommodate it. (So now I'll call that little amplifier the VFO buffer.) Completely pulled the old PLL board and carefully moved wires from the old VFO board to the new one, then added a wire to replace the out of lock detector output that I had hotwired on the old PLL board.

Fired it up and it failed immediately.

Which, as you can imagine, was not the result I was hoping for.

Checked voltages, output from the +5V regulator was low. Touched the regulator, painfully hot. OK, must be a short somewhere. Started checking, no shorts. Plugged Arduino into the PC, board lit right up. Hooked frequency counter to the output of the VFO buffer and got the 19.whatever MHz I was expecting.

Which I found to be a bit odd considering it didn't work at all a few minutes before.

Took radio back to bench to recreate the problem, and it started working. So whatever was shorted was unshorted when I moved stuff around. Which tells me I need to insulate the entire board since I don't know which part was shorted.

But the channel display problem seems to be fixed.

 

[Retro CB Guy]

TM86 I'm amazed at all this and Kudos to you for all the experimenting and working with Sidebander 6 like this! I'm a big fan of the SBE radios and own many of them. I just now caught this post by chance while looking up the PLL chip they use. I've also been into the wonderful world of the DDS setup which can bring back to life and upgrade MANY cb radios, lovely stuff...

There is an outfit in Texas that has worked with a person who programmed them nicely, called TRS Online now - used to be called Troy Radio ! And a group for that on Facebook as well...

I have what appears to be the 1st Console 6 that has the DDS installed in it.

All the best very cool what you have done 73's, Retro

 

[TM86]

TM86 I'm amazed at all this and Kudos to you for all the experimenting and working with Sidebander 6 like this! I'm a big fan of the SBE radios and own many of them. I just now caught this post by chance while looking up the PLL chip they use. I've also been into the wonderful world of the DDS setup which can bring back to life and upgrade MANY cb radios, lovely stuff...

There is an outfit in Texas that has worked with a person who programmed them nicely, called TRS Online now - used to be called Troy Radio ! And a group for that on Facebook as well...

I have what appears to be the 1st Console 6 that has the DDS installed in it.

All the best very cool what you have done 73's, Retro

Thank you for the kind words.

I am aware of TRS, they just didn't have what I was looking for at the time. They do have a lot of nice features in their product.

But if you don't need all the bells and whistles, you can roll your own. After all, I'm not all that bright and I did it.