John,
For this particular application I think that approach might work, but it forces others to make major concessions in terms of utilization of space inside the enclosure to avoid CAN-Do radiated EMI. Regardless of what happens to the CAN-Do EMI it looks like you better plan on some nasty DC power and filter the DC input accordingly.
I can see a small PCB attached to the CAN-Do 40-pin connector that contains DC filtering, the receiver's switching power supply, and lands for the signal lines that need to go back to the receiver (not all 40 conductors - just the ones we actually use.) We'd probably want to run those wires through to the other compartment via feed-thru filters in the common bulkhead using a small wiring harness, then another small harness on the other side to interface to the receiver PCB. An alternate approach might be to use a smaller ribbon cable and connectors to move the actual signals and power back to the receiver, but that adds weight and doesn't allow for filtering through the bulkhead unless we found an EMI ribbon cable bulkhead connector. I think I'd prefer the discrete wire harness approach. I think it's lighter, more reliable, and eliminates one set of connectors.
Before proceeding with another revision I'd like to see an EMI requirement spec and a practical way to generate the expected noisy DC power. This will also give the next group something to design and test to.
By the way, did you see my phase noise data? I went back and tested again using another spectrum analyzer while mine is getting calibrated. You'll notice an interesting diversion between the two. As the saying goes, "A man with a watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches can never be sure." I'll run that again when I get the calibrated spec. a. back from the shop.
73,
Juan
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From: John B. Stephensen [mailto:kd6ozh@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:38 PM To: juan-rivera@sbcglobal.net; 'Louis McFadin' Cc: 'Dave Black (Work)'; 'Dave Black (Home)'; 'David Smith'; eagle@amsat.org; 'Samsonoff@Mac. Com'; 'Juan.Rivera (Work)' Subject: Re: U-band receiver changes to reduce EMI and improve thermal regulation
If the CAN-Do module can be placed in a shielded compartment with multi-pole filters on all wires leaving the shielded area, we can get at least 80 dB of attenuation for conducted interference and the electric field component of radiated interference. Magnetic shielding is harder as it requires iron or mu-metal so a magnetically shielded inductor should be used in the CAN-DO module.
Synchronizing the switchers to a frequency with no harmonics at 10.5-10.9 MHz would help with radiated interference, but a shielded inductor may be sufficient if it can be moved far enough from the RF circuitry -- especially the PLLS and VCOs.
If we have only two adjacent sides available for connectors, the CAN-Do module and power supply circuitry could attach to the existing connector bracket. The RF and IF connectors would then exit along one long side of the box as far from the CAN bus connector as possible.
73,
John
KD6OZH
----- Original Message -----
From: Juan mailto:juan-rivera@sbcglobal.net Rivera
To: 'John B. mailto:kd6ozh@comcast.net Stephensen' ; 'Louis mailto:w5did@amsat.org McFadin'
Cc: 'Dave mailto:dblack@mail.arc.nasa.gov Black (Work)' ; 'Dave Black (Home)' mailto:dblack1054@yahoo.com ; 'David Smith' mailto:w6te@msn.com ; eagle@amsat.org ; 'Samsonoff@Mac. mailto:'Samsonoff@Mac.%20Com' Com' ; 'Juan.Rivera (Work)' mailto:Juan.Rivera@gd-ais.com
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 04:32 UTC
Subject: RE: U-band receiver changes to reduce EMI and improve thermal regulation
Hi John,
I had a chat or two with Bob Davis about chassis and I think you can bring SMA connectors out one side and the CAN-Do out the end, but nothing out the back.
Given the amount of conducted 5 kHz noise I'm seeing, do you think you can filter it out? Don't forget, I'm feeding the receiver with bypassed clean DC from the bench supply at the moment. The CAN-Do switched DC is nasty.
In your next version why not raise the switching frequency up and get it out of the passband completely? What do you think of Howard's idea of synching the switching supplies?
Juan
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From: John B. Stephensen [mailto:kd6ozh@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 9:24 PM To: Louis McFadin; juan-rivera@sbcglobal.net Cc: Dave Black (Work); Dave Black (Home); David Smith; eagle@amsat.org; Samsonoff@Mac. Com; Juan.Rivera (Work) Subject: U-band receiver changes to reduce EMI and improve thermal regulation
For the next version of the 70 cm receiver, I'm thinking of an arrangement where the CAN bus exits out of the opposite side of the module from the RF and IF. Does this create any problems in the wiring harness?
The CAN-DO module would be mounted on a small PCB containing most of the power supply circuitry. This PCB would contain the switcher that generates 7 VDC for the receiver and some of the linear regulators. It would be mounted at one end of the module and be heat-sinked.
The RF circuitry would be mounted on a separate PCB at the other end of the module. This allows all RF and IF coax connectors to mount on this PCB and attach directly to the connector mounting bracket. It also eliminates the flying lead for the frequency reference input. The power dissipation would be limited so that it doesn't need to be heat-sinked. This protects the SAW filters from rapid temperature excursions and keeps them above -30 C at all times.
The two PCBs would be connected with a cable carrying DC power and the signals being monitored. Each PCB would have filtering for power and the signals being monitored by the IHU. The interconnect cable would travel through a common-mode choke using high-permiability ferrite.
If necessary for thermal reasons, the RF amplifier and first mixer would go on a third PCB with a heat sink. LO and IF would connect to the second PCB via 2 coax cables. Once the new requirements document is approved, the power dissipation can be calculated for each of the 3 PCBs and a thermal analysis would determine whether 2 or 3 PCBs are needed and how far apart they should be.
Unless more problems are found during testing of the current version of the receiver, the circuitry would be same as now, except that an MCU is added to initialize the PLLs and the second mixer and second IF amplifiers are changed to devices that dissipate less power in line with the new requirements document. Bob has expressed some interest in Peregrine PLLs that can have the frequency hard wired so they could be inserted instead of adding the MCU.
73,
John
KD6OZH
----- Original Message -----
From: Louis McFadin mailto:w5did@amsat.org
To: juan-rivera@sbcglobal.net
Cc: Dave mailto:dblack@mail.arc.nasa.gov Black (Work) ; Dave Black (Home) mailto:dblack1054@yahoo.com ; David Smith mailto:w6te@msn.com ; eagle@amsat.org ; Samsonoff@Mac. Com mailto:Samsonoff@Mac.%20Com ; Juan.Rivera mailto:Juan.Rivera@gd-ais.com (Work)
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 02:36 UTC
Subject: [eagle] Re: CAN-Do EMI - Let's Get Going on This!
Juan,
Why not think out of the box, Put the Can Do module outside the box, perhaps on top of the module.
I think that is a more likely solution than re building the Can-do module.
Lou McFadin
W5DID
w5did@mac.com
On Jun 29, 2007, at 10:25 PM, Juan Rivera wrote:
Bdale,
I'm sorry to pick on you, but you seem like a good guy to complain to...
I seem to be having a problem stimulating a discussion. After saying that I
though the CAN-Do power supply needed to be completely scrapped and replaced
with one running at around 1 MHz I expected to be buried in email, but I've
only received one message referring to this so far, and it wasn't from
anyone working on CAN-Do.
The CAN-Do module is unique in that it is going to be an integral component
INSIDE of every payload, so any deficiencies it may have are going to have a
large impact.
Let me restate my finding so far:
There are 4 categories of EMI and the CAN-Do module / 70 cm Receiver
combination is experiencing all four. They break down into radiated and
conducted emissions and susceptibility, and they are generally referred to
by a two-letter designation - RE, RS, CE, and CS.
RE and RS go together - the CAN-Do module's switching power supply inductor
radiates the 5 kHz switching noise out the back directly towards the
receiver (RE.) The Receiver's VCO's are both very sensitive to EMI and are
impacted by the CAN-Do module if they are within 4-1/2 inches of the
inductor (RS.) I've had to move the CAN-Do module off of the receiver PCB
and interconnect it with a ribbon cable to deal with this problem. The good
news is that I am fairly confident that It can be fixed by going to a
two-compartment chassis, with a bulkhead separating the CAN-Do module from
the analog Receiver to provide shielding. The bad news is that I think this
means we need a milled module chassis.
CE and CS also go together, and this is the real problem I see since you
can't fix conducted EMI with a shielded enclosure. It requires filtering.
The CAN-Do module is trashing the DC input from the power source and also
feeding noisy power to the Receiver. The outgoing noise is the bigger
concern because it will add to the CS problems for everything connected to
the power source. In the other direction, the switched power from the
CAN-Do module shows up in the IF output as 5 kHz spurs. Moving the CAN-Do
module physically away from the Receiver only dealt with the RE/RS issue. I
had to bypass the CAN-Do module and run clean power directly from the lab
bench supply to deal with the CE/CS problem. This means that there is no
current monitoring and no power control.
The 5 kHz switching frequency is bad for two reasons - it makes filtering
this noise a much larger problem than it needs to be, and the impact is more
severe since it is putting spurs all over the passband of the IF at 5 kHz
intervals.
If you sit back and think about the impact of a dozen noisy power supplies
all feeding EMI back to the common power source where they all mix together
and make their way back to each payload, it starts to look nasty. All these
supplies will be drifting around and beating with each other to produce sum
and difference noise on the power bus. 5 kHz noise is hard enough to get
rid of but what if there are difference components at a few hundred Hz? How
can you design a filter when you won't know what to expect until you hook
everything up and turn it on? And by then you're out of time.
I'm not making this stuff up. People I know have run into this exact
problem before and the result was very bad.
A while ago Howard Long made a suggestion that I think has great potential.
Here's what he had to say:
...in the original SDX PSU design I had in San Francisco last year is an
SMPS using the LM2672 device. These can be fitted with an AC coupled SYNC
signal to override the internal default SMPS frequency. I selected 375kHz
for my unit (6MHz divided by 16) to ensure its harmonics were outside the
10.7MHz IF passband. If the external SYNC fails the internal SMPS oscillator
takes over.
My Suggestions:
1) Revise the CAN-Do module to move the switching frequency up as far as
possible to move spurs out of the passband of sensitive analog circuitry,
and to ease the burden on EMI filtering.
2) The power and grounds must be filtered in both directions to minimize CE
back to the power source and to the payload.
3) The switching inductor should be a shielded to reduce RE inside the
module chassis.
4) A power supply capable of synching to a master oscillator should be
strongly considered.
This topic needs to be elevated to the top of the queue. The EMI
environment surrounding the CAN-Do module impacts the design of the next
revision of the 70 cm Receiver, and also directly impacts the chassis
design. What do we need to do to get going on this?
73,
Juan - WA6HTP
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