A laser application scientist by day and a embedded developer by night. Driven by challenge and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge regarding everything technical, I have started this website to contribute to the open-source world and provide a limited portfolio of my capabilities.
Like Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, among many others, I am an autodidact. I have studied the realms of electronics and physics on my own for over 25-years and I continue to explore and contribute to the world of science in my full lab at home. My professional experience is my testament; the companies I have worked for, over the past 18-years, have benefited greatly from my skills. I continue to challenge myself in an effort to expand my repertoire of knowledge.
5 Responses
Mr. Lance! I can’t believe I found you! I recognized the picture of you in the radio station. 😉 That was so long ago. I remember giving you songs to play and then you’d give me a shoutout on the weekend. haha I miss your face. Let’s catch up. 🙂
Hey Lance! it’s been a while. This is chad I’m a machinist now. I can’t believe I found you. Remeber that time we were in your radio shack and you were fixing my tube linear and got electricuted? lmao! I think we both needed new underwear after that one. I still have that 43 Ford we were messing around with back in the day. There’s not much to it anymore but it’s got a lot of memories. I’m married and got a couple of boys now so I dont have a lot of free time for those projects. Anyway write me a line sometime.
Hey Lance,
Just came across your website, wanted to say Hello. Not sure if you even remember me. You helped me with some photo lab equipment many years ago. Are you still in central FL? I’ve moved around a bit. Living in East TN now. Hope you are well. Dan
Hi (I will guess) Lance! There’s a university named that!
I’m doing Matlab simulation of AD9951 signal generation for HF-VHF ham radio. Maybe you’re a ham? Maybe not.
Folks a few years back used AD9851 to generate very low bandwidth, HF signals called WSPR, You may have heard of that.
The 9851 is just too slow and coarse to do much more than 70 MHz and not hugely agile. The 9951 almost trebles this.
(People have used the cheap Si5351 clock chip from Silicon Labs to do things like this, but it’s not phase or mag agile.)
In my pursuit I came up against the HS SPI “wall” that must thwart so many experimenters and enthusiasts.
I’ve been scanning the internet for days now (coming across your site) for ways to scale that wall.
So far, it’s large CPLD (for a fast state machine) or FPGA. Only Xilinx is cost friendly. Intel/Altera has really gone corporate.
I’ve been eyeing Xilinx’s Arty kits (Artix 7 FPGA). $100 with design software included (!).
But I’m wondering if you tried to cross that river yourself, and what you found.
Any reply appreciated.
Bye for now – Keith (my ham listing, AI7SI, is on QRZ.com)
Hi Keith, I’m not sure how I missed your message, so sorry for the delay.
I am not a ham; I’ve stuck to the public bands in my leisure communication, and never really saw a need, nor had a desire, to get a ham license. However, I understand what you’re saying. I don’t have experience with the AD9851, so I can’t comment. The datasheet for this part is a complete mess; I can’t easily find the maximum update frequency, for example.
I tend to stick with Xilinx CPLDs and FPGAs. I use the Dangerous Prototypes Papilio board, which comes with a bootloader so you don’t even need a JTAG programmer. You can find fairly cheap boards on AliExpress. I never had a need to update the frequency and phase so quickly, so I never developed anything for it. However, it seems like you’re on the right track; if CPLDs and FPGAs are easier for you, then go for it. The STM32 microcontrollers might also be a good option.