Original project creator here.

> Very few "projects from the internet" actually work, most are incomplete, or poorly designed.

Well my design is complete, does work, and I use it every day.

> this is my overal plan:
> [PC] --USB--> ...

That's not your plan. That was what I wrote in my project update. You can't call something yours just because you copy pasta.

> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

 

Original project creator here.

> Very few "projects from the internet" actually work, most are incomplete, or poorly designed.

Well my design is complete, does work, and I use it every day.

> this is my overal plan:
> [PC] --USB--> ...

That's not your plan. That was what I wrote in my project update. You can't call something yours just because you copy pasta.

> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

I'm not disputing your contention that your's works and is complete. Perhaps you can see the point, though. We see a never ending stream of people asking for help on completing projects they got off the internet. Typically, the plans have no consideration for reliability, often run components out of spec, have screwy firmware and generally show ignorance of sound engineering principles. I'd bet the majority of those people never get their project working.

 

Original project creator here.

> Very few "projects from the internet" actually work, most are incomplete, or poorly designed.

Well my design is complete, does work, and I use it every day.

> this is my overal plan:
> [PC] --USB--> ...

That's not your plan. That was what I wrote in my project update. You can't call something yours just because you copy pasta.

> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

hey,
thank you so much for your reply, sorry I did copy past that part , but didn´t ment to let it sound like it was my idea. I should have give credits to you but I didn't expect you to read this. later in the forum I put links of your blogs in it so I wasn't trying to pretend like it was my project, I really want to thank you for the blog you made and the files on hackaday. They helpt me a lot and I learned a lot from them.
Do you mind if i use those and try to make my own DAC? I tried to contact you but didn't succeed.
I'm learning a lot by reading your blogs and the schematics and how you handle this project. (I hope one day I can do this on my own But there is one thing I do not understand, The SPI flash part. I hope you can help me out or maybe send me the complete code
Can you really hear a difference between music through the laptop and the DAC?
Hopefully you will reply

 

Original project creator here.


> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

Perhaps you could illuminate the process and difficulties you had designing, prototyping and debugging this project?

The original poster needs some perspective on how complex seemingly simple modern gadgets have become, and the slim chances of getting a project like this to work without in-depth knowledge of many tricky aspects of the project.

 

Agree this seems a very complicated project compared to the type of questions mere being asked,
I'd say a VERY big first step.

Not least, its an audio DAC,
Now I'm part deaf now, but in the day, used to be involved in audio,
and DAC's are VERY subjective, an art form compared to the digital electronics.

If you trying to design and build from the start, a big step.
If your building a kit sounds a great idea.

If you want to experiment with usb and audio, as opposed to just do this project,
have you looked at the teensy 3.6 boards,
not bad at all at audio in the end, and gives you a platform you can experement and extend from,

Re the pad on the bottom of the chip you ask about,

Its there to get the heat out of the very small area of the silicon,
its a heat spreader as well as quite oftern an electrical contact.
If you dont solder it tight to the board, the chip will behave very strangly , if your lucky it will just not work, if your un lucky, it will sort of work.

 

Agree this seems a very complicated project compared to the type of questions mere being asked,
I'd say a VERY big first step.

Not least, its an audio DAC,
Now I'm part deaf now, but in the day, used to be involved in audio,
and DAC's are VERY subjective, an art form compared to the digital electronics.

If you trying to design and build from the start, a big step.
If your building a kit sounds a great idea.

If you want to experiment with usb and audio, as opposed to just do this project,
have you looked at the teensy 3.6 boards,
not bad at all at audio in the end, and gives you a platform you can experement and extend from,

Re the pad on the bottom of the chip you ask about,

Its there to get the heat out of the very small area of the silicon,
its a heat spreader as well as quite oftern an electrical contact.
If you dont solder it tight to the board, the chip will behave very strangly , if your lucky it will just not work, if your un lucky, it will sort of work.

Yeah, the Teensys are worth looking into. 3.2, 3.5 and 3.6 will all work for this application. The 3.6 for $30 is just plain an amazing amount of horsepower for less than the cost of a fancy meal. Add in the audio board - it has a headphone jack and the OP's hardware is done. Paul has written a very nice audio library with lots of transforms and a decent graphical way to use the library. They also have a very nice tutorial for noobs. But it still requires some level of programming and certainly an understanding of electronic audio. I think the journey is worth it but it's not a slap-it-together-in-one-night kind of thing.

 

I have the schematic the bill of material and know how it works. The company where I work for school will make the PCB. so this project is doable. The only thing I don't understand is the SPI flash.
Please stop sending messages about how undoable this project is. because I will not listen and do it anyways, because never a horse couldn't be rode, never a rider couldn't be throwed.
summivox has a blog about the spi flash:
Does someone understand this?
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/spi-flash-through-bus-pirate/

 

I have the schematic the bill of material and know how it works. The company where I work for school will make the PCB. so this project is doable. The only thing I don't understand is the SPI flash.
Please stop sending messages about how undoable this project is. because I will not listen and do it anyways, because never a horse couldn't be rode, never a rider couldn't be throwed.
summivox has a blog about the spi flash:
Does someone understand this?
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/spi-flash-through-bus-pirate/

yep I understand it, whats the specific questoin ?

 

yep I understand it, whats the specific questoin ?

Hey Andrewmm,
This part of the blog what Summivox made goes about the SPI flash:
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/spi-flash-through-bus-pirate/
and later in this part under the title XHRA Hiccups — the SPI Flash Fiasco:
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/making-myself-a-usb-dac-headphone-amp-usb-interface/
But i'm gonna use a USB spi flash programmer instead of the bus pirate.
My question is, can I use the code given in this blog, or is the code incomplete?
Or are the codes only usably with a bus pirate?

Thank you

 

Hi so what do you know about the bus pirate ?
basically, its a way of reading and writing pins on a board.
so the example is telling one how to control the bus pirate pins to toggle them as required to program the spi chip.

A SPI programmer, does not use all those reading / writing instructions , it knows how to toggle its pins
what you feed the spi programmer with is a programming file,
something like a hex file, or an Intel format file,

You either need to get hold of a programming file, or you need to reverse engineer how the bus pirate code works, or get a bus pirate.

 

Hi so what do you know about the bus pirate ?
basically, its a way of reading and writing pins on a board.
so the example is telling one how to control the bus pirate pins to toggle them as required to program the spi chip.

A SPI programmer, does not use all those reading / writing instructions , it knows how to toggle its pins
what you feed the spi programmer with is a programming file,
something like a hex file, or an Intel format file,

You either need to get hold of a programming file, or you need to reverse engineer how the bus pirate code works, or get a bus pirate.

thank you for the reply. Do you know how I can get the programming file?

 

thank you for the reply. Do you know how I can get the programming file?

sorry , no
You had better ask the people your getting the circuit from ,

 

Hi so what do you know about the bus pirate ?
basically, its a way of reading and writing pins on a board.
so the example is telling one how to control the bus pirate pins to toggle them as required to program the spi chip.

A SPI programmer, does not use all those reading / writing instructions , it knows how to toggle its pins
what you feed the spi programmer with is a programming file,
something like a hex file, or an Intel format file,

You either need to get hold of a programming file, or you need to reverse engineer how the bus pirate code works, or get a bus pirate.

Original project creator here.

> Very few "projects from the internet" actually work, most are incomplete, or poorly designed.

Well my design is complete, does work, and I use it every day.

> this is my overal plan:
> [PC] --USB--> ...

That's not your plan. That was what I wrote in my project update. You can't call something yours just because you copy pasta.

> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

please help me out man, I'm searching for 3 weeks now how to do the SPI flash coding.
I have a USB spi flash programmer right now. Can you please send me the code.
Or tell me how you did it. I read your blog 3 times and don't understand the programming part.

PLEASE HELPP

 

Hi so what do you know about the bus pirate ?
basically, its a way of reading and writing pins on a board.
so the example is telling one how to control the bus pirate pins to toggle them as required to program the spi chip.

A SPI programmer, does not use all those reading / writing instructions , it knows how to toggle its pins
what you feed the spi programmer with is a programming file,
something like a hex file, or an Intel format file,

You either need to get hold of a programming file, or you need to reverse engineer how the bus pirate code works, or get a bus pirate.

Is this the code for a bus pirate or can I use it for my USB SPI flash programmer? (see datasheet)

I found this part in his blog:
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/spi-flash-through-bus-pirate/

Thanks

 

Is this the code for a bus pirate or can I use it for my USB SPI flash programmer? (see datasheet)

I found this part in his blog:
https://summivox.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/spi-flash-through-bus-pirate/

Thanks

This is an advanced project. Your attempt to complete it just because your employer is willing to make a PCB is the same as me asking, “please give me instructions how to build a house, my employer will build window frames for me.”

 

Original project creator here.

> Very few "projects from the internet" actually work, most are incomplete, or poorly designed.

Well my design is complete, does work, and I use it every day.

> this is my overal plan:
> [PC] --USB--> ...

That's not your plan. That was what I wrote in my project update. You can't call something yours just because you copy pasta.

> A question like that means this project is over your head.

True.
@ducher: I would recommend you try something a lot simpler than this first.
@philba's suggestions make sense.

Hey, i just saw your avatar and notice you are (or were) in the greater Pittsburgh metro area. Welcome to the forum.
A couple of us get together for dinner occasionally. Should we include you in the next invite?

 

This is an advanced project. Your attempt to complete it just because your employer is willing to make a PCB is the same as me asking, “please give me instructions how to build a house, my employer will build window frames for me.”

I'm gonna try it anyways, and if it will not work right away I go to school and try to find the problem with a oscilloscope or ask teachers or forms.
I only need to know how the spi flash code works and than I can buy the components and start soldering.
So if you please will reply to my question. I think you can help me out with the SPI code (if you want)
It would make me very happy.

PS. if I succeed this project I will send you a picture

 

We've been round this one. The TS is determined to do it his way. I see no point in telling him different.

 

programming the spi flash is very easy

All you have to do is use a programmer,
an arduino is an easy way, and there are very many other programmers out there
just get one, and away you go

ALL you have to do is to find data you what you want to program the flash with ..
we can tell you the rest, but we can't tell you what code you need to put in the flash,

so, go back a stage

go back to where the circuit is from,
check with them if there is and then what is the code to put into the spi flash,


And please remember, we are all friendly here,
a few please and thank yous go a long way
none of us get paid for this and it takes a fair amount of time to work through these forums.

please think before you post, and think what do you want exactly, and consider can we reasonably be expected to have an answer that we can pass to you in a few lines of forum text .

 

@GopherT : I have left Pgh more than a year ago.

@ducher: This project was designed to be modular.

You are probably struggling with the USB-I2S bridge module, which I have to admit is pretty tricky.

Designing and debugging the whole project requires a broad (but not deep) knowledge of EE basics, your lack of which others have pointed out. However it seems that all you need is to manufacture a copy and the only thing missing is a programmed SPI flash.

I have added the firmware image to my Hackaday project files. Just burn it into a flash chip accepted by XHRA-2HPA (see blog https://summivox.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/making-myself-a-usb-dac-headphone-amp-usb-interface/ about the chip's flash chip ID whitelist). A dedicated SPI Flash programmer is a lot better than bus pirate, but make sure (very important!) you enable the 4-bit or quad-IO mode of the chip before you solder it to the PCB. Refer to SPI flash datasheet for how (it's usually one of the configuration registers, which you can write to using 1-bit SPI). My SPI flash programmer does NOT operate on configuration registers so I had to use Bus Pirate to do that.