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ATU Ticking Noise on receive.

 

HI all,

I'm in need of some advice please, I purchased an ATU 100 from Ali Express, I have had it for about 5 months, on the front, it has 1 green tune/reset button, a red on/off rocker switch and a USB C charger socket, it has an internal battery.?

From the first day of use, it has a ticking sound that can be heard through the receiver only, it is present throughout most of the HF range, it is regular and does not change in frequency, the ATU100 unit itself, makes no audible clicking noise (except when tuning and you get the relays clicking), so the noise can only be heard through the receiver, apart from this, the ATU100 works very well.

For months, I have thought it was local interference and didn't suspect the ATU100 whatsoever, the only thing I have had to do so far was replace the OLED display which went wrong, I do not use the ATU100 whilst it's charging as this also creates noise, since becoming more active on HF,? the clicking is becoming more of an issue when listening to weak signals, I have used a manual ATU to confirm that the clicking dissapears when not using the ATU100.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so, how did you cure the problem?.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

73
Pete


Changing Torrid mix / size?

 

Hi,
While testing my frequency monitoring changes, I've been using FM (into a dummy load and a lightbulb, to reduce my noise on the air).
On 6m/50MHz, it tunes the lightbulb to about 1:1.3 which is OK, but it's using L4 (the first of the toroid ones), and at about 10W (FM), it gets really hot (100C+).
I guess it's one of the following:
1. It's a cheap from Chinese clone, and that toroid is duff.
2. I've cooked that toroid during testing and it's dead now
3. It's not rated to 50MHz, and that's causing a problem.

I've got some T68-6 on order (-6 is rated to 55MHz vs 40MHz of the -2), so will replace the two single cored ones. But wondering if going to T80-6 or T130-2 or T130-6 might help if it's saturating.
The -6 mix is only ur=8.5 not ur=10, so the windings change slightly (9.4/14 instead of 8.7/13), but shouldn't need any other changes.

I'd like to run FM/FT8 at 30...40W so any of the others I should be upgrading?

Thanks,
Roger.


Re: Remote control.

 

I2C was a pain,? I ended up just sending basic serial out of RB6 and pulling the button lines low with the Arduino to control the tuner. Then RS485 / Modbus back to node red in the shack..

Ian VK2AMA


Re: Remote control.

 

/g/ATU100/message/2818


Remote control.

 

Hi,
For remote control of the ATU-1000 I am trying communicates through it's I2C bus to grasp all the measurement data. I want to use an Arduino Uno acts as I2C slave and connect it to the Internet.

Could the LCD screen current connection be used or would the firmware code have to be modified?

Do you know if anyone has done this and posted the code?

73.


Re: bruen coupler

 

Paul
perhaps you can draw and post the Schematic of what you built which might help.

Like others here I have not seen or remember seeing one with 4 toroids.

Glenn


Re: Computer simulation model for ATU-100 7 x7 #photo-notice #file-notice

 

Looking at the schematics for various commercial tuners, the remote tuners (with a C-L-C Pi network) often include impedance and phase measuring hardware.
The first page of the schematics in shows the Fwd/Rev/Frequency/Impedance/Phase measuring circuitry.

You mentioned in another post that the L/Rev-L tuners only have a single optimal point.
I wonder if the C-L-C tuners have more than one point, and they somehow use the Impedance and Phase measurements, rather than just relying on Fwd/Rev->SWR.

If you look at the SG-230 schematic, it has 8 inductor relay channels of 0.25u....20.8uH, 6 input caps of 100p...3200pF, 5 output caps of 12.5p...400pF, so 2^19 combinations ~ 500K, so 8x the ATU-100, so they can't search them all!
Interestingly: The final two inductor channels, and output cap channels have 2 relays contacts in series, probably to improve the output circuit voltage handling.


Re: Computer simulation model for ATU-100 7 x7 #photo-notice #file-notice

 

Oops.

On reviewI see the formulas are really quite simple (once you ignore the complex math). Just a series impedance followed by a parallel impedance or a parallel impedance followed by a series.


Re: Computer simulation model for ATU-100 7 x7 #photo-notice #file-notice

 

Tom, I dont remember, but I did very small changes.
I have also different kinds of this for different L and C configuration. Cp-Ls-Cp, Cs-Lp_Cs, Lp-Cs-Lp, Ls-Cp-Ls, T-tuner


Re: Hardware / software wish list

 

I'm currently counting the T1CLK pin for 1ms, then doing a div4, to average it out, this gives 16kHz steps. The frequency to memory lookup takes about 500 clks (so 250us).
This is done twice.? If these are the same, then I do a relay set, and an SWR voltage read/SWR calc.

I'm planning on using two SWR targets, one is the good target, to store (maybe 1:1.3), the other an? OK target, to use (maybe 1:1.5).

I'm using 14-bit program memory, with the top bits initialised to 1's.? When I store anything I clear the top bits, so these can be used to tell if there is a valid store value.
In the future, I might use the top bits, to store the SWR.? We have 12-bits, so 8-bits for the SWR, would leave enough for other flags.

So read the main memory, if that's got top bits set, then step -1 or +1, then -2 / +2 to find some settings.? If any are found, then the relay are set to the memory, and the SWR is read.
If the SWR is Good, then it's used.? If it's OK, then it does a fine_tune() to try to improve things.
If this gets it down to Good, then it stores it, if it gets it down to OK, then it's used.

If there is no stored or if the SWR is above the OK level then we do a tune(), or Tom's tune2(), if the SWR is below the Good level, then the L/C/CSW get stored.

I've put some more pictures, and the full schematic on by website:
This includes my horrible soldering where I swapped the pin 11 and pin 23.
Pin 11 is the T1CKI, is was the Cap SW relay, but I cut that connection, and used a wire from the 74AC14/74HC393.
Pin 23 was the Bypass button, I #ifdef'd the code for the button, and used that pin for the Cap switch


Re: Computer simulation model for ATU-100 7 x7 #photo-notice #file-notice

 

David Fainitski,

Do you happen to remember where you found the original code from Alex?R2AUK. I've been looking all around and so far no luck. I found his github here??but so far no luck at finding his complex impedance formulas. Was this was a private communication perhaps?

Trying to validate my test code. Thanks.


Re: Hardware / software wish list

 

Very cool! ?Very promising results!

That sounds like it would be mostly just software at that point then! ?(Though I guess there¡¯s more to do there than I thought, you¡¯d probably want to not only load the saved value, but have logic to check that it¡¯s still low enough SWR in case the user changed antennas, and re-tune if needed¡­

If we wanted to get real fancy, I guess a way to temporarily turn off the saved values, or clear them for when using another antenna at field day or something. ?But I guess that wouldn¡¯t add a lot and wouldn¡¯t be required.

The real question is since it requires a small hardware mod, if we get it working and the improvement is indeed worth it, can we get the Chinese kit sellers to start selling new kits and pcbs with the new layout? ?Probably need to come up with a new name to differentiate it. ? Too bad atu100m is already used for a different mod, m=memory would be perfect!


Re: Hardware / software wish list

 
Edited

I cross posted some of my results.
So I thought I'd post how far I've got.

This is the front end signal conditioning, going into a 74AC74 (Schmitt trigger inverter) that is used to clean the signal up. It feeds a 74HC393 which is a ripple counter. ?I'm only using a divide by 4.
this feeds into pin 11 (which is the TMR21 clk in). ?I've cut the CSW relay feed and move that to one of the TX pins (which I don't use yet).


I have some simple test code that just displays the frequency, it's timing in 16kHz steps.
I have a frequency to memory slot lookup function that covers the amateur bands (with +256kHz margin) in 16kHz steps to 26MHz. Then 160kHz steps above that.
Uses 512 memory slots (16-bit each) but I'm using the program space to store the results.
With the display type set as a #define, the other display code gets optimised out there is plenty of space.
I'm looking at the optimised tune, and will add that, and a nearby search for when you have a memory for something near.

The Pspice of the front end shows it should be good for 5W....225W from 1.5MHz to 55MHz.


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

I've got the basics working. ?Just doing spice sims to work out some component values. ?Basically the 74AC14 at the front end needs a 1V...4V signal. ?Over the whole frequency range, from 5W...100W.
my first guess worked to about 20MHz. ?This was using 16kHz resolution.


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

Oooo, the ATU100 has the capability of measuring frequency???

It sounds like it might take significant development work, but adding stored tuning information to make later tuning instant on the same antenna would definitely be a worthy feature¡­


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

Just been looking at the tune2.c, and seen the LRU list.
While looking at the LDG and MFJ relay patterns I see several repeats, given that the code tracks the best found so far, there seems no point in testing something that's already been tried.
For the 7x7 + SW it's 15-bits = 32K combinations, but using 1 bit per (instead of a list that needs searching) that's 4K Bytes (so too much for the internal RAM).


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

Hi,
I've been looking at adding frequency monitoring to the ATU-100 HW.? I have it mainly working (current front end gain is wrong above about 24MHz), so need to tweak some of the network values to get the right voltages and offsets. As part of this I've been wondering about better algorithms, I'll have an experiment with the tune2.c once I've got the freq monitoring sorted.
As part of my research I've been looking at the Icom-AH4, LDG IT-100, MFJ 939.
Interesting, you should mention the steps.? For the inductors, you can measure and tweak, to get them power of 2.
For the capacitors, the AH-4 (and I think the MFJ) uses the same value (so probably same batch, so similar capacitance) 2 in series, as a single, and two in parallel for the smallest 3 settings.? So this should give pretty good binary steps for the bottom 3 bits.? I wondered if it was a temperature thing (for the AH-4) as they would all drift together.
But with what you mentioned, it's an easy way to get pretty good power of 2 values for the bottom 3 bits.

The AH-4 (and SG-237 which I've looked at by don't own, so can't do much checking with) are both remote tuners, and they have separate input and output capacitor banks.
Looking at the schematics, they use fewer bits of smaller capacitors on the antenna side than the input side (as a PI rather than an L).
The SG-237 has 7 bits on the input (51pF...3200pF) but only 4 bits on the output side (12.5pF...100pF) - With 8 bits of inductors.
(Not fully traced the AH-4 board, looks like 8 bits + 3 bits of capacitors + 9 bits of inductors)
Given the limited range on the output, I wonder if the SW=output side range could be significantly restricted.

I started looking at the LDG relay patterns and can already see ways to optimise it (they use bipolar relays, and wait after both the +ve and -ve switching, even if no relays are changing on one phase).? But I only have a 16 channel analyser, so looking to piggy back a monitoring PIC on top of the current one (they use a 28-pin 0.3" DIP PIC, so easy), with this I can output the frequency, relay pattern and Fwd, Rev voltages to a serial port when things change.

Keep up the good work,
Following with interest,
Roger.


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

Chris, my tuning algorithm isn¡¯t too different than the article you referenced, but I think you will find that the tuning algorithm in the article results in a lot more switches to find a solution. ?It is certainly thorough, but without a way to re-use tunes by frequency matching, it might not be an ideal trade off.


I start out using an optimal table to find a point to start hill climbing, going from the most likely to least likely, rather than running through all the Ls and Cs by 8

Then rather than look in all 8 directions, I only look in 2 directions along one axis and then the other. But identical to the article, I keep reducing by a factor of 2.

I only start walking the diagonals if I haven¡¯t gotten a good match by this point in my 8 way search function.?


I have seen the ¡®false¡¯ peek problem with my test points mentioned in the article, but it is very very rare. ?I doubt it¡¯s happening much in the field when you look at all the data. ?I believe it might be related to the component step size bing closer to 3 so sometimes a couple of inductor steps is better than one capacitor step or visa versa. Going to binary component values would fix this problem, but introduced the problem that imprecise components or parasitics on the board would result in reversals values with binary steps of 1. ?


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Could be either.? I used the code in tune2.c to replace the tune() routine in the ATU100 3.2 firmware


On 20/02/2024 21:58, Glenn via groups.io wrote:

Is the Github code pointed to for the ATU-100 or ATU-10?

Seems to be? a conflict here, nATU-100 in the post and ATU-10 at Github.

glenn


Re: For ATU-100 *NEW Algorithmes versus* !!Testers needed!! s#atu-100 #file-notice

 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Is the Github code pointed to for the ATU-100 or ATU-10?

Seems to be? a conflict here, nATU-100 in the post and ATU-10 at Github.

glenn