[McHUG] Si570 Thoughts

[Rich Mitchell]

I have been playing with the Si570 frequency generator because it looks like an ideal peripheral for our ATMega168 BareBones Board.  Here are my building blocks:
1. BareBones Board Rev C - The ATMega168 supports TWI (A4, A5)
2. Si570 on the WB6DHW board
3. W0CNN software using TWI approach

I have been able to load the W0CNN software into the BBB.  Now its input controls are pushbuttons on the STK500 development board with some read out to LEDs.  These things we can change.  It looks like on boot it will generate a frequency word for 10 MHz.  So just loading and attaching the WB6DHW board should give us a quick test.

I have put together a WB6DHW Si570 board (not tested yet).  I hope to attach it to a carrier board (from RadioShack) that would give me 8 pins similar to the DDS60 board.  The hope is that with different software your could interchange the two in the same Radio MotherBoard.  The DDS60 has the following pinouts:
1. Load
2. Clock
3. Data
4. +5 out
5. Ground
6. RF out
7.
8. V++ in

For the Si570 I would wire the carrier board to have:
1. +5 reference from BBB (similar to load ??????)
2. SCL (Clock)
3. SDA (Data)
4. 
5. Ground
6. RF out
7. RF out (does the Si570 have to have 2 RF outs?????)
8. V++ in

If this works, I suggest we redesign the WB6DHW Si570 board to first, have through hole parts wherever possible.  The Si570 is the largest part on the board right now.  We could give up a bit of compactness for ease of building.  Second, standardize the pins after the DDS60 where possible.  An easy to build frequency generator would be a great asset for McHUGgers.

Rich, N3III


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