Hi Pete --
TAPR did one production run of the ClockBlock at the beginning of 2007,
building 100 units, and they were available until all were sold (which
IIRC took a couple of years). I'm not sure if we ever looked at doing a
second run, but I seem to remember that one of the components became
either obsolete or crazy expensive.
But this is a good chance to describe how TAPR handles product
manufacture. We think of ourselves mainly as an R&D organization making
stuff that's not available elsewhere. We're a volunteer, non-profit,
group and the up-front cost to get a bunch of boards assembled is a
major hit to our bank account. We can't afford to build units that will
sit in inventory for years. (This discussion is mainly about assembled
products; the sunk cost for kits is usually much lower.)
So, our usual approach is to do one manufacturing run of a quantity we
are pretty sure will sell out quickly. It's usually not cost-effective
to build less than 50 units, and the per-unit cost drops dramatically as
you increase to 100 or 200 pieces. We do our best to balance unit cost,
upfront cost, and expected sales in a way that's prudent based on our
resources.
We normally don't expect to do a second manufacturing run, as the first
run usually consumes most of the demand. If we place a second order for
a smaller quantity, the unit cost goes up and we would have to increase
price accordingly. If we do a larger order, we risk turning our limited
cash into aging inventory.
There are some cases where the demand justified a second run -- for
example the TICC, where virtually all the units were pre-sold and we
felt comfortable getting a second batch. But our niche market is small
enough that in most cases one run is enough to saturate it.
I believe we have some bare ClockBlock PCBs available; if you're
interested in rolling your own unit, contact me off-line and I'll see
what we can do.
John
----
On 10/09/2018 01:25 PM, Pete Lancashire wrote:
I just wish the tapr would not discontinue things so fast it seems once you
see it mentioned it's discontinued
On Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 1:08 PM Bob kb8tq <kb...@n1k.org> wrote:
Hi
If (as originally specified) noise and jitter are not a big deal - there
are a lot
of chips out there like the ICS570. They are designed to do weird ratio
frequency
conversions so 10 to 12 or 10 to 16 are trivial for them. The Clockblock
board was
one way to get it all put together.
Bob
On Sep 30, 2018, at 12:05 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk...@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 30.09.2018 um 16:49 schrieb Attila Kinali:
The simplest way I can think of is the following:
Use a 74LV8154 to divide the 10MHz down to 152.587890625Hz.
Use the capture timer unit of the uC to measure the phase of the
pulse. Use any kind of DAC (internal, external, PWM,...) to steer
the 16MHz VCO. Depending on how fast the timer unit runs, this
will give you something in the order of 10-200ns dead-band.
By choosing the right frequency for the timer unit, one can
get it to "dither" a bit and then use averaging.
For lower jitter, use one half of a Nutt interpolator
to get the timing difference between the 152Hz signal
and the 16MHz (ie similar to what the SRS FS740 does).
Use something akin Nick Sayer's time-to-amplitude converter
for the fine measurement.
Same works equally well for 12MHz.
Wow. That's truly a Rube Goldberg design.
There is a simpler way. IDT ICS570. Digikey 800-1073-5-ND
Solder time less than 10 minutes.
I had the 3V3-Version in the parts drawers, officially it takes the 5V
version to generate the 160 MHz, but the 3V3 version happened to work,
too.
The difference between 120 and 160 MHz is just a GND wire on pin 6 (vs.
open)
Divide by 10 is left as an exercise.
regards,
Gerhard
(But then, some like to build and tune multiplier chains and mixers.)
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