Biteensio production boards have arrived and available now

Jim  W0EB has announced that the Biteensio production boards have arrived and been checked out.  See www.w0eb.com for details on how you can order one of these.   Remember that Vince K8ZW was the winner of the competition to name these boards.

Jim also has some breakout boards for the 1/8″ jacks that will allow them to be easily mounted and wired up without having to guess which terminal does what.  These may save a lot of grief.

Key features of this board include:

  1. uses the PJRC Teensy 3.6 as the MPU rather than the Arduino NANO
  2. plugs into the 16 pin female header on the uBITX main board just like the Raduino and the RadI2Cino
  3. the main tuning encoder, function switch and push-to-talk wiring will still be compatible with both the Raduino and the RadI2Cino.
  4. All of the extra, available I/O pins are brought out to DuPont pin headers (some on the front and some on the back of the board)  

See the board installed on the µBITx main board below:

Kits are now AVAILABLE FOR ORDER.

Prices are $12 (USD) for the bare boards to domestic US customers and $16 (USD) to international customers.

Kits which will include all parts except a Teensy 3.6 MPU, will be US$35 to US customers and US$45 to international customers. This price includes shipping (both domestic and international).

PayPal will be the preferred payment method and the ONLY payment method for international customers.

Download a copy of the BITeensio Board Construction Manual. Up to date versions will always be available in the “Documentation” directory under the W0EB/W2CTX uBITX Files link on this page.

For other details see the W0EB website.

Note that the Biteensio is not compatible with the manufacturer’s firmware supplied with your µBITx or the CEC firmware from Ian KD8CEC. The Biteensio board uses a different keying system and a different processor (Teensy 3.5 or 3.6), so you will need to use the W0EB/W2CTX firmware supplied especially for the Biteensio.

Reference

W0EB/W2CTX Firmware release v2.01R


Jim Sheldon W0EB has announced a further release of Firmware (v2.01R) of the W0EB/W2CTX firmware intended for I2C driven displays (including the newly announced “RadI2Cino” card which is an (almost) drop-in replacement for the Raduino.

This release effectively covers all the enhancements for the non-I2C Raduino released earlier (v 2.00R)

The following changes have been incorporated in the firmware:

“The CW Keyer module has been completely re-written in this version. The keyer is now totally interrupt driven which helps make the transition to CW transmit much faster and it doesn’t tend to clip the first dot as it did occasionally in past versions. This version also moved the DASH paddle input from the analog A7 input. It now shares the analog A3 input with the PTT line as normally PTT isn’t used in CW mode and the Hand Key isn’t used in CW Paddle mode or the Paddles aren’t used in CW Hand Key mode so all three can share the same input easily. This gives A7 back to those wishing to use it for metering applications. Complete, illustrated documentation on everything in this release is contained in the zip file as a PDF. Menu operation has been slightly improved from V2.00R as well. We hope you enjoy using this version. Jim – W0EB and Ron – W2CTX”

You can access the release details file as follows:
https://groups.io/g/BITX20/files/ubitx_V2_01R.zip

Reference

Arduino IDE Naming Issue Fix

Yvon NU6I  says: “What bugs me with the Arduino is the lack of proper naming convention. Whatever software I download from the web or github, once it is loaded in the IDE, be it Arduino or UCIDE it always shows as uBitx_20. Looking in the output window doesn’t show the project/file path. Easy to be confused.”

Ron Pfeiffer W2CTX replied with the solution: “In the Arduino IDE, just select  Sketch –> Show Sketch Folder“.  This assumes you gave the folder a sensible name …

Jack, W8TEE says “You can also set the default using File –> Preferences from the menu bar. I usually just create a directory for each project, placed in an appropriate subdirectory.”

One more annoyance solved!

Reference

New software release v2.00b from W0EB/W2CTX

A file has been uploaded to the Files area of the BITX20@groups.io group.

File: ubitx_V2_00R.zip

Uploaded By: Jim Sheldon <w0eb@cox.net> </w0eb@cox.net>

Description:
Latest NON I2C release from W0EB/W2CTX – ubitx_V2_00R contains totally restructured menu system – SPLIT is working – slight rewiring of CW Key Jack is required but this VASTLY improves the CW keying – full instructions are included in the PDF manual — see README.TXT in the zipfile for change details. File has been replaced due to newer instruction manual contained in the zipfile.

You can access this file at the following URL:
https://groups.io/g/BITX20/files/%23ubitx%20ubitx%20release%20software%20from%20W0EBW2CTX/ubitx_V2_00R.zip

You may need to log in to the website IO Groups site to access the file.

OR

Download the file directly from ubitx.net:

Instructions for W0EB and W2CTX uBITX V2.00R software

Reference

 

Jim W0EB provided a further post on the [BITX20] Group list that gives a bit more detail on this v2.00 release:

“We have totally restructured the menu to make it much easier to use.  The Nano’s CPU cycle usage has been optimized for vastly better CW (a minor front panel wiring change is necessary to use this software).  Split is working (you do NOT have to be in transmit to change the transmitter’s frequency) and though not available yet CAT is being worked on.   We are not promising CAT anytime soon but we’re trying to implement it and keep CW working right.  (Not an easy task with a Nano but we want to keep from having to change out the Nano for some bigger card).

“Due to an easy programming trick, the keyer’s dash paddle AND the Hand Key/external keyer connection has been moved to the same wire as the SSB PTT on the Raduino’s digital connector (the orange wire).  This is possible since we don’t normally use the CW key or paddles when in SSB mode and we don’t use PTT when in CW mode.

“The menu item CW:Key or CW:Pdl selects whether or not the line is used for the hand key or dash paddle.  This requires a minor wiring change and either a short adapter cable to be built for the hand key/external keyer or a separate hand key jack be added.  Either way it’s an easy mod.

“This change gives the analog A7 input back to the guys wanting it for an “S” meter or power/swr metering.  The blue wire (A6) remains as the dot input.  Since we don’t have to select a specific threshold voltage on A6 for dot/dash/hand key and just determine key up or key down, the 2.2K and 10K resistors are no longer needed and the CW paddles work MUCH better.”

Reference