PowerSWR Annotated

I attached some temporary jumpers now for testing, they will be replaced later when I have my SMA connectors to make cables.

Note on the drawing below, P1 and P2 are both single windings meaning only one pass thru of a wire larger than 30 gauge.  S1 and S2 are 13 windings of 30 gauge wire.  Also be careful with the pins for the header as pin 1 and pin 3 are reversed on the motherboard versus the Power SWR board.  When in doubt, look for ground with a meter, and work from there when figuring out pin numbers.

Minifilter Set A annotated

160m

80m

40m

20m

17/15m

12/10m

Annotated Toroid locations

I hope these help, they are from my notes so I believe they are correct, if anyone spots any mistakes, please let me know and I can update them:

 

T2 (top)

T3 (top)

T4 (top)

T5 (top)

Toroid orientations from a previos post (top)

Motherboard with SI570 calibrated

Nice to see everything is where it is supposed to be... 

PowerSDR calibrated against WWV

Filter example

Attached is an example of one of my filters, in this case it's the 160m.  Really no importance to colors other than to show what ones I ended up using with minifilter set A.

Filters added and first receive test

I will have to take some better photos of the filters (sorry for the awful pic), but it's working :-)  Now that receive is running, next challenge is to get transmit working.

Bench testing

Nice to see some stations on the waterfall

Time for testing and filters

Well connected it back to the SoftRock, and so far no flames, and the test looks good below.  Can't wait to get the replacement U4 so I can see the voltage. Time to start making a filter or two to test receive before moving on to the last bit for transmit.

Toroids and last Capacitor added (T2, T3, T4, T5, FB1, C28)

My most hated part of any radio project... the toroids.  Glad these are out of the way :-)  I'd recommend placing C28 after the toroids to make sure you leave enough room.

Toroids T2, T3, T4, T5 and FB1, and the Capacitor C28

T2, T3, T4, T5, FB1, C28

Headers added

Most of the headers and connectors are now added.  Make sure to put a jumper or put in a jumper wire across T1.

Filter and misc headers (top)

Modifed SoftRock 6.3 RXTX Board

In order to connect the motherboard, some minor changes need to be done to an existing SoftRock board.  The SW1 block needs to be removed if added, with a 4 pin female 2.54mm header added (included in the kit), and it's the middle row of pins.  You also need to jumper JP1 to 3.3v, one symptom of this missing is the I2C bus will not work correctly.  Lastly add the included 2 pin female 2.54mm header o the PITT-I and GND pins.  The U6 PIC socket can remain, but the PIC needs to be removed.  I will probably end up building up a dedicated SoftRock as a spare for the Motherboard as many of components around U6 are not necessary.

Modified SoftRock 6.3 RXTX board

Close up of 3.3V jumper that needs to be added

Transistors and headers added (Q1, Q2, Q5)

I am probably going to replace several of the headers with KK molex as I like how they pair so you don't need to worry about plugging in backwards.  I'm not sure which ones yet I am replacing, but will probably be most of them as I go thru.  They are not stock with the kit.  I've also removed SW1 as it's not necessary unless I want to change I2C addressing.

Note: I've replaced P32 as there is an included header so it can go direct to the SoftRock board without needing a jumper wire.  The bottom image is what it should look like.

Transistor Q5 and some headers added for testing (top)

Transistors Q1 and Q2 and headers added for connecting to the SoftRock board  (bottom)

Q1, Q2, Q5

Off to bed...Disaster averted!

Well after spending a few hours debugging, looks like U4 in the Google Files group had a PDF with the chip backwards  As a result it was a bit cooked by the time I found it.  After thinking the whole I2C bus was bad, I realized I missed a jumper on the SoftRock 6.3 RXTX board.  I now have the temperature sensor functioning correctly as well as I2C querying of the SI570 :)  I'll update tomorrow with latest pics and info of the board and the modified SoftRock 6.3 RXTX board.  Definitely a fun project, and can't wait to get receive working!