Tag: W3JDR

Posted on

Another Raduino Replacement – this time with a Blue Pill

Joe W3JDR is working  on a  Raduino Pill board which is a direct replacement for the stock Raduino, but with an STM32F103 processor and much more I/O. I think it hits all the points on your wish list. I released the PCB to fab a few weeks ago and am waiting for boards to arrive from China. Assuming it functions without major rework, I’ll post the CAD files and Gerbers on my web site and encourage others to develop for it. I plan to immediately mod the stock uBITX firmware to run on it, then will expand functionality to incorporate the work I’ve done with TFT displays, hi-res encoder and software S-meter & AGC. I’ve cleared my bench in anticipation of arrival and am checking the mailbox every day.

Reference
Posted on

W3JDR has been busy cooking up some interesting mods

Joe W3JDR asked on the IO Groups BITX20 list for CAD details for a board layout for the Blue Pill” STM32F103 processor.  Members quickly discovered that Joe has a blog with details of his hacks to the µBITx that would be of wider interest to constructors.

Reference

Check out  https://w3jdr.wordpress.com/  for a range of mods including:

  • audio preamp (Q70) dynamic range improvement by substitution of a resistor
  • a digital sampling S Meter
  • a slide rule type colour display for frequency
  • an amazing front panel for his µBITx
  • a high resolution optical encoder

Joe says,

“I’ve been busy behind the scenes doing a lot of things with the control system. I now have the entire app running on an STM32F103 “Blue Pill” board, which is only about $2.50 on Ebay. This gives me a 70 mHz 32 bit controller with 128K bytes of program memory.

“My software S-meter is now working quite well and only requires 2 resistors and a cap, plus some code. I’m using a separate ILI7735 display for the S-meter, both displays on the same SPI bus. The S-meter is derived from a 10kHz sample-rate of the pre-amp audio, with software peak detection. The TFT meter display has a max-hold pointer that resets every few seconds, while the main pointer is real-time. There are digital readouts on it for peak signal level in uV, dBm and S-units.

“The measurements from the S-meter will drive a digipot after the audio pre-amp to effect a feedforward AGC. Feedforward, with software calibration, should make for a very fast acting AGC without the overshoot/undershoot artifacts of feedback systems.

“I’m also using a 400 ppr optical encoder for frequency control with interrupt processing; it tunes beautifully smooth, with 1 hZ steps and software acceleration. . All of this puts a real strain on the little Nano u-controller, hence the move to the Blue Pill.

“I intend to layout a new Raduino that accepts the ‘pill’, with extra connectors for SPI and I2C busses. I developed my own tinier version of the Adafruit Si5351 board that will mount on the Raduino. I might even use a separate Si5351 for the main VFO in order to eliminate the crosstalk spurs generated in the single-chip approach. This was all moving smoothly while I was house-bound during Winter, but will slow down while the weather’s nice outside.”