Thursday, March 10, 2016

Arduino Nano + LCD + Mini Circuits ZX47-60+ Power Detector (completed)

I've mostly completed this NIFTY little project today.  All that remains is to add an external power jack to it.

Migrating from the breakout board to a real device wasn't as hard as I expected.  Took one evening of close attention to detail, but when I tested it, it fired up perfectly.

Today the ZX47-60-S+ arrived via FedEx.  It was DOA (dead on arrival).  I decided I didn't want to wait for a warranty replacement so I opened the mini device up and found a cold solder joint on the +5vdc line in.  I fixed that at least temporarily.  I also bitched to MiniCircuits about the issue, but I haven't heard back from them.  I'd like a replacement, but no telling it that'll happen.  We'll see.

Anyway, once I found that and fixed it, I put the ZX47-60-S+ into my project, and fired things up again.  I used a Elecraft XG3 to put -33dbm and 0dBm into my project box's input, and wha-friggin-lah IT WORKS!!! :-)

I added a 60db step attenuator to the input and use 0dBm into the attenuator and stepped down to -60.  In all cases the device was reporting within about 1.5dBm (if the XG3 is even accurate).  But that's CLOSE ENOUGH for what I needed anyway.

Here are some pix.
















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