DIY Regen Battery tweak

[randytsuch]

sorry should have put that on the other regen thread

although there is a bit of a knack in soldering on the chip,
the rest was relatively simple,
i asked jk for a second opinion on the pinout implementation as my first attempt didn't work first time
but it was just the usual silly mistakes (pins not connected and inability to count pins )

it was built for use with lifepo4 battery thats why i posted it here
and there's no 5v pass through as my dac is self powered (+5v should never enter a dac)

I was looking into building one.
The chip QFN package looks tricky to solder, since it has no leads.
If you could get past that, I'm sure the rest is easy.

I may order a few chips, and a couple qfn to dip adapters, and give it a shot. The stuff is relatively cheap, so not a big deal if it doesn't work out.

I was also looking for eval boards, but newark has a minimum order of 4 boards, and a long wait for backorder, I'm not even sure you could buy them if you wanted to.

Randy

[jkeny]

I was looking into building one.
The chip QFN package looks tricky to solder, since it has no leads.
If you could get past that, I'm sure the rest is easy.

I may order a few chips, and a couple qfn to dip adapters, and give it a shot. The stuff is relatively cheap, so not a big deal if it doesn't work out.

I was also looking for eval boards, but newark has a minimum order of 4 boards, and a long wait for backorder, I'm not even sure you could buy them if you wanted to.

Randy

Yea, give it a go - it ain't too difficult.

It allows direct experimenting with these USB hub chips:
- power the USB hub chip & 24MHz clock with 3.3V LiFePo4 battery, directly
- try using synchronous clock sharing between USB hub chip & whatever USB receiver you are using - it could lift the SQ even more? (Nige is trying this & may report soon?)
i.e if using an XMOS USB receiver some use a 48MHz clock - divide this in half & use the resulting 24Mhz signal at the USB hub chip
If using an Amanero board which needs a 12Mhz clock for USB duties, divide in half the USB hub chip's 24MHz clock signal & send the resulting 12Mhz signal back to be used as the Amanero board's USB clock.

A clock divider can be done with just a simple 74 flip flop but you do have to take into account the different voltage levels required by the chips clock signal inputs i.e the XMOS requires a 1.8V clock source & the USB2412 can take a clock signal of a minimum 1.4V level - so both should work if using a low voltage flip flop to do voltage level shifting i.e these can accept a 3.3V input clock signal & output a divided down clock at 1.8V

The Amanero is a bit simpler as it doesn't require voltage level shifting, like the XMOS receiver - the ARM chip (which performs the USB duties) uses a 3.3V USB clock input signal as does the USB2412 chip so a standard 74 flip flop should be fine

[randytsuch]

Looks like another project to tackle.

I have an amanero I'm using, and an exD that I just got, and can't use because I haven't been able to get it to work with Server 2012.

So, seems fairly simple as long as I can solder the qfn part. And by adding a f-f, I can try a common clock.

I just ordered a couple adapters from China, hope to have them before the holidays.

Randy

[jkeny]

Just ask any questions here, Randy - you know someone will give you a resonable answer

[nige2000]

I was looking into building one.
The chip QFN package looks tricky to solder, since it has no leads.
If you could get past that, I'm sure the rest is easy.

I may order a few chips, and a couple qfn to dip adapters, and give it a shot. The stuff is relatively cheap, so not a big deal if it doesn't work out.

I was also looking for eval boards, but newark has a minimum order of 4 boards, and a long wait for backorder, I'm not even sure you could buy them if you wanted to.

Randy

Yea, give it a go - it ain't too difficult.

It allows direct experimenting with these USB hub chips:
- power the USB hub chip & 24MHz clock with 3.3V LiFePo4 battery, directly
- try using synchronous clock sharing between USB hub chip & whatever USB receiver you are using - it could lift the SQ even more? (Nige is trying this & may report soon?)

ya funny story i ordered some 74 f-f without checking the output levels of the xmos 48mhz clock which was 1.8v they wouldnt work at vcc =3.3v and wouldnt function at the 1.8v same as the 48mhz clock
late last night i remembered i had 7474 potatos from a project i never started and when i checked the data sheet this morning they were rated for 1.65v swapped out very roughly just to test the theory and it worked we had 24mhz at 1.8v levels

i.e if using an XMOS USB receiver some use a 48MHz clock - divide this in half & use the resulting 24Mhz signal at the USB hub chip
If using an Amanero board which needs a 12Mhz clock for USB duties, divide in half the USB hub chip's 24MHz clock signal & send the resulting 12Mhz signal back to be used as the Amanero board's USB clock.

A clock divider can be done with just a simple 74 flip flop but you do have to take into account the different voltage levels required by the chips clock signal inputs i.e the XMOS requires a 1.8V clock source & the USB2412 can take a clock signal of a minimum 1.4V level - so both should work if using a low voltage flip flop to do voltage level shifting i.e these can accept a 3.3V input clock signal & output a divided down clock at 1.8V

The Amanero is a bit simpler as it doesn't require voltage level shifting, like the XMOS receiver - the ARM chip (which performs the USB duties) uses a 3.3V USB clock input signal as does the USB2412 chip so a standard 74 flip flop should be fine

i built another usb hub unit and mounted it to the usb i2s card tonight along with the frequency divider, but things arent going my way tonight (parts are small and fiddly tapping into the diyinhk ) so im gonna leave it till tomorrow maybe "the force" will be with me then

[randytsuch]

i built another usb hub unit and mounted it to the usb i2s card tonight along with the frequency divider, but things arent going my way tonight (parts are small and fiddly tapping into the diyinhk ) so im gonna leave it till tomorrow maybe "the force" will be with me then

I was planning to do something like that, seems like one of the advantages of doing this is I can wire it up to my usb/i2s board with a couple of short wires, and not need a couple of usb connectors.

Good luck tomorrow, hoping the force will be with you :)

[rickmcinnis]

For a good laugh read the AA posts that jkeny overpatiently tried to explain how to mod the REGEN.

The final straw: http://audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/m ... 53538.html. There is more down below this series.

He has run the gauntlet of stupidity and survived!

Can't believe you gave it so much time.

I never realized just how dumb those folks are. In many ways it is an illustration of all that is wrong in the world.

I kept going back just to see if anyone would figure out how SIMPLE this is.

Reminds me of one of my favorite lyrics from Peter Townshend - "the simple things you see are all complicated". I feel sure he did not mean it the way I am "deconstructing" it but you wonder if these people are still learning how to urinate? Much too complicated for them. I figure they are still wearing diapers.

[jkeny]

Yea, It's a mixture of people who shouldn't be even attempting something like this (as they don't understand basic electronics) & those who are misleading them with all sorts of erroneous information either because they don't understand it themselves (doh!!) or because they simply want to muddy the waters. Fmak has been banned but has continued his campaign over on Computeraudiophile but others continue to talk about explosion bags, battery chargers, the definition of trickle charging & all sorts of other stupidity.

After all the wanton (& intentional) stupidity demonstrated in those threads, I stopped posting but felt an obligation to reply to posts to defend myself against misleading information being given (which could seem to be coming from me) & to stop people doing something stupid & then blaming me.

[rickmcinnis]

You can be assured they will do something that has nothing to do with anything you said and still blame it on you.

Valiant effort. As I said "no good deed goes unpunished".

The "trickle charge" aspect of the thread qualifies for an audio MONTY PYTHON skit.

I have the same experiences with local audio folk and that is why I have nothing to do with any of them.

"Don't confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind"

I find the same foolishness at CA. Your mod is not expensive enough or complicated enough to qualify for good.

Just looked at the CA thread. Seems Mr. Swenson cannot understand this either. When you wrote "trickle charger" they can only see TRICKLE CHARGER. Seems the concept of a simple 3.3 volts regulator running full time is just inconceivable to them. Incredible. I could understand a little confusion at first. I was skeptical the first time I read about this but I never made the leap that I had to use a commercial trickle charger to maintain the batteries. One would expect the usual - well, isn't this just the same as using the regulator alone? Aren't you negating the goodness of the battery? When I realized the battery was being used as an almost perfect capacitor I finally got it.

Now I should go and finish up that DAC. No excuses today.

[nige2000]

Yea, give it a go - it ain't too difficult.

It allows direct experimenting with these USB hub chips:
- power the USB hub chip & 24MHz clock with 3.3V LiFePo4 battery, directly
- try using synchronous clock sharing between USB hub chip & whatever USB receiver you are using - it could lift the SQ even more? (Nige is trying this & may report soon?)

right ive had this working a couple of days
i built it in such a fashion that i could plug in and out either an asynchronous usb hub or a synchronous one both powered the same so that it was comparable
i had expected it to be better synchronous and initially i was a little confused with the results i found a little grey area
the asynchronous hub seemed to have more detail but more edge to the sound, on more listening i realised the synchronous was more natural/ real sounding albeit a little bit of detail, one thing i dont like to surrender, but my gut feeling is that synchronous is right and maybe down to synchronous needing improved implementation
for the most part results are inconclusive, discussed my findings earlier with jk, the fact is the 48mhz clock and the frequency divider f-f of the synchronous system is running of the xmos built in 1.8v, at least on the asynchronous the hub clk is direct lifepo4. and when you think about it runing clks or even f-fs from the built in xmos 1.8v power supply is just a bad idea

data sheet says oscillator needs to be 1.8v oscillator so 3.3v levels are out, therefore we need a new 1.8v supply? and ideas are welcome
3.3v is our best reference supply so how do we get a 1.8v just as good?

i.e if using an XMOS USB receiver some use a 48MHz clock - divide this in half & use the resulting 24Mhz signal at the USB hub chip
If using an Amanero board which needs a 12Mhz clock for USB duties, divide in half the USB hub chip's 24MHz clock signal & send the resulting 12Mhz signal back to be used as the Amanero board's USB clock.

A clock divider can be done with just a simple 74 flip flop but you do have to take into account the different voltage levels required by the chips clock signal inputs i.e the XMOS requires a 1.8V clock source & the USB2412 can take a clock signal of a minimum 1.4V level - so both should work if using a low voltage flip flop to do voltage level shifting i.e these can accept a 3.3V input clock signal & output a divided down clock at 1.8V

The Amanero is a bit simpler as it doesn't require voltage level shifting, like the XMOS receiver - the ARM chip (which performs the USB duties) uses a 3.3V USB clock input signal as does the USB2412 chip so a standard 74 flip flop should be fine