Solid weekend of progress. The remaining resistors I was missing came in on Friday so I finished up the last of the analog out section. The noise is almost completely gone, but if you really crank the volume when it's paused, the digital stuff is still down there. I'm going to talk to some EE dudes to see what else I could do, but it's pretty good.
Worked Saturday on the PIC firmware more. Since upgrading to the bigger chip with a roomy 14 KB of program space instead of 3 KB, I had space to stretch out and rewrite some code for readability and reusability rather than brute space efficiency. Debugged all of that and worked out some smaller details of the UX. Like for example, the 5908 auto-silences the audio for about 1 second whenever you make any tape transport or eject commands. So I'd always miss the first half second of a song after hitting next or previous since the BT command would trigger faster than the audio would un-duck. By adding a bit of pre-delay before triggering these commands, I can better line up the change to the audio. It's sort of fun, trying to inconspicuously fit into these odd design requirements imposed by the radio.
Anyway, here's the completed version 3 of the board, the first one to work with no jumpers! Here, it actually has the 5907 mounting hardware attached. It rained on Friday and some of it dripped through my shed and got on the 5908, so it was drying and I was test-fitting in the 5907. Still gotta track down that pinhole...
This has most of the hardware to support the 5907 as well, hence more connectors. Still indecisive on the name, even though I threw "Refilled Radios" on this one. You gotta try these things on. I've also thrown around (my current favorite) Big Button Audio, Inside Out Audio, or Inside Out Radios.
Mounted in the 5908:
Here's the debug and firmware-work setup. The Mac runs the PIC IDE connected to the programming header with their USB programmer, then a homebrew programmer on a breadboard for the CSR BT chip hooked up to the bottom Mac (running Windows for their configuration tool).
Buttoned up the last of the known issues this morning and got on to the best part: finally installing it in my car.
DEATH TO CHEESY PLASTICS AND BLINKY LIGHT SHOWS!!!
Most of the install was painless, I had gotten one radio with its harness, which I had to reinstall in my car. I'm going to try and see what I can do to find suitable replacement speaker connectors though, unless someone knows of some? I assume some people will need those since they don't seem to be standard.
The only issue I found was that the dash hole for the radio is seriously tight, so much that I snagged and shred a microphone cable by coming out the side of the chassis and trying to run it back along the side of the radio. Instead, here's where I ended up running it, which actually seems to work well, just have to make sure there's no burrs on the top lid:
And finally, much improved!
Drove around a bit rockin out, made a phone call, tried all the things, everything is working peachy. It was a good day. Going to try to nail down the last of this digital noise for the next board rev, but I'm going to go ahead and make the other edits for IT (analog stuff for the 5907 and removing some extra debug gear). I've got 3 people who have spoken up wanting to be part of the first round beta, I would do one more if someone wants to participate with feedback and possibly having to swap out boards if there are issues, etc. I'll plan on making 5 boards, hand-assemble them, and get em out to this first round of folks! Goal is to be sending those out by May 1.
Worked Saturday on the PIC firmware more. Since upgrading to the bigger chip with a roomy 14 KB of program space instead of 3 KB, I had space to stretch out and rewrite some code for readability and reusability rather than brute space efficiency. Debugged all of that and worked out some smaller details of the UX. Like for example, the 5908 auto-silences the audio for about 1 second whenever you make any tape transport or eject commands. So I'd always miss the first half second of a song after hitting next or previous since the BT command would trigger faster than the audio would un-duck. By adding a bit of pre-delay before triggering these commands, I can better line up the change to the audio. It's sort of fun, trying to inconspicuously fit into these odd design requirements imposed by the radio.
Anyway, here's the completed version 3 of the board, the first one to work with no jumpers! Here, it actually has the 5907 mounting hardware attached. It rained on Friday and some of it dripped through my shed and got on the 5908, so it was drying and I was test-fitting in the 5907. Still gotta track down that pinhole...
This has most of the hardware to support the 5907 as well, hence more connectors. Still indecisive on the name, even though I threw "Refilled Radios" on this one. You gotta try these things on. I've also thrown around (my current favorite) Big Button Audio, Inside Out Audio, or Inside Out Radios.
Mounted in the 5908:
Here's the debug and firmware-work setup. The Mac runs the PIC IDE connected to the programming header with their USB programmer, then a homebrew programmer on a breadboard for the CSR BT chip hooked up to the bottom Mac (running Windows for their configuration tool).
Buttoned up the last of the known issues this morning and got on to the best part: finally installing it in my car.
DEATH TO CHEESY PLASTICS AND BLINKY LIGHT SHOWS!!!
Most of the install was painless, I had gotten one radio with its harness, which I had to reinstall in my car. I'm going to try and see what I can do to find suitable replacement speaker connectors though, unless someone knows of some? I assume some people will need those since they don't seem to be standard.
The only issue I found was that the dash hole for the radio is seriously tight, so much that I snagged and shred a microphone cable by coming out the side of the chassis and trying to run it back along the side of the radio. Instead, here's where I ended up running it, which actually seems to work well, just have to make sure there's no burrs on the top lid:
And finally, much improved!
Drove around a bit rockin out, made a phone call, tried all the things, everything is working peachy. It was a good day. Going to try to nail down the last of this digital noise for the next board rev, but I'm going to go ahead and make the other edits for IT (analog stuff for the 5907 and removing some extra debug gear). I've got 3 people who have spoken up wanting to be part of the first round beta, I would do one more if someone wants to participate with feedback and possibly having to swap out boards if there are issues, etc. I'll plan on making 5 boards, hand-assemble them, and get em out to this first round of folks! Goal is to be sending those out by May 1.
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