Conversation
jmorris

James Morris

Learning KiCAD.



@kicad
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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @fustini
@fustini @kicad feel free to point out any issues if you see them.
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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @jmorris
Boards arrived from @oshpark -- next step, soldering.


@kicad
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n8dmt@mastodon.radio

Gary @N8DMT

Reply to @jmorris

@jmorris Nice! Looks like a nice addition to the RF capabilities there. (And a great use of kicad as well.)

Could see something like this doubler being useful on the output of my Pluto SDR (at least over the 4.5 to 6 GHz input band that the Pluto TX covers). Curious to see how they work there… Thanks & 73

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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @n8dmt@mastodon.radio
@n8dmt it should work really well, the input range is 4.5 to 8 GHz officially, but it likely does more. This is indeed to extend my Kuhne 13.4 GHz synth up to about 18 GHz.
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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @jmorris
@kicad @oshpark amazingly, the 0.8mm FR4 material works very far out of its expected range, and is useful up to ~16 GHz with acceptable loss & SWR for my hacking purposes.
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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @jmorris
@kicad @oshpark and the drop-off around 18 GHz could also be significantly due to the connectors, which are rated to 18 GHz. To get better results, I'd need to go to 4-layer FR4 (where the top layer is very thin), or microwave laminates (expensive).
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oshpark@fosstodon.org

OSH Park

Reply to @jmorris

@jmorris @kicad Thanks for posting! We area always excited to see people explore the RF capabilities of our boards. Our 4 layer stackup was specified with help from people in our local Dorkbot PDX group. It's great to see these results for the half thickness 2 layer!

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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @oshpark@fosstodon.org
@oshpark @kicad Now verified to work with the HMC doubler as expected. Thanks for making this possible! I plugged the laminate specs from your site into a couple of calculators and they were in close agreement, as are the test results. 4-layer is the next step. I'll publish the design & will be presenting the overall project at Microwave Update (MUD) in a couple of weeks.
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oshpark@fosstodon.org

OSH Park

Reply to @jmorris

@jmorris @kicad Awesome, thanks for sharing!

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azonenberg@ioc.exchange

Andrew Zonenberg

Reply to @jmorris

@jmorris @kicad @oshpark I've run 25G NRZ over osh 4L 1.6mm with wide open eyes as long as the routes are reasonably short. It's a very capable material.

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azonenberg@ioc.exchange

Andrew Zonenberg

Reply to @azonenberg@ioc.exchange

@jmorris @kicad @oshpark and i believe @dlharmon has done VNA measurements out to somewhere in the Q band? My personal measurement capabilities stop at 16 GHz on the scope and 25 Gbps on the BERT but I've been very happy with how it's performed in general.

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