Next TIU revision?

NHVRYGray posted:

Will be needing another TIU in the not too distant future due to expansion.

Does anyone know if/when the next TIU revision (post L) might be coming along?  An external antennae jack maybe?  

Wondering about springing for an L revision or waiting to see if an upgrade is in the future.

Gray Lackey

 

why do layouts need more then one TIU?

We've got the prototype next-TIUs in our club.  We found the issue with dying signal voltages so we did some design work with MTH, to improve the situation and have been testing them out in our club since Jan 2018. Mostly changes to the short-circuit and TVS protection circuitry. Nothing massively exciting feature wise, unless they are planning other additions we don't know about.

You can do the antenna jack yourself!

It's really easy, maybe 20 min of work per TIU. Just a few SMA parts (bulkhead). Our club is 2 rooms and we constantly had reception problems when we were standing on the non-TIU side of the wall until we did this tiny adjustment. Now it all works great regardless of where you are. We just used this antenna from amazon. It's omni so it's good if you're mounting it in the middle of a room or under the table. If you're putting the antenna on a wall you may want to go with a panel. Don't make it too directive (like a Yagi) or you'll have to stand in a specific spot to get reception.... Soldering the connection on the RF PCB is a little tricky, I'd recommend doing it under a microscope.

As a sanity check I plug into the jack from outside with an VNA to make sure we didn't mess up the impedance (like make sure the S11 is good).  If you don't have a VNA you can use a SWR meter at 900 MHz (~$250 on Ebay these days).  

Photos of the hack job:

Inside:

Outside:

Adrian! posted:

You can do the antenna jack yourself!

It's really easy, maybe 20 min of work per TIU. Just a few SMA parts..... Soldering the connection on the RF PCB is a little tricky, I'd recommend doing it under a microscope....

Good post and information. However, I would venture to say that the vast majority of the OGR Forum members don't even own a microscope, let alone the skills to do any soldering on surface mount technology. My soldering skills are limited to nice big fat sections of wire.

Great information, and I personally can see how this would be of benefit on my layout. However, given the limitations of my electronics skill-set, this rates as "un-obtanium".

Adrian! posted:

We've got the prototype next-TIUs in our club.  We found the issue with dying signal voltages so we did some design work with MTH, to improve the situation and have been testing them out in our club since Jan 2018. Mostly changes to the short-circuit and TVS protection circuitry. Nothing massively exciting feature wise, unless they are planning other additions we don't know about.

So there is something new coming but we don't know when...

One would wonder if either MTH could upgrade existing TIUs, a daunting task to say the least, or if they could provide a kit for service folks to do.  Seems like a pretty relevant change that could help a lot of folks.  Either way it seems to have solved an issue.

Gilly@N&W posted:

Adrian! posted:

You can do the antenna jack yourself!

It's really easy, maybe 20 min of work per TIU. Just a few SMA parts..... Soldering the connection on the RF PCB is a little tricky, I'd recommend doing it under a microscope....

Good post and information. However, I would venture to say that the vast majority of the OGR Forum members don't even own a microscope, let alone the skills to do any soldering on surface mount technology. My soldering skills are limited to nice big fat sections of wire.

Great information, and I personally can see how this would be of benefit on my layout. However, given the limitations of my electronics skill-set, this rates as "un-obtanium.

I doubt many people have an SWR meter or VNA to measure antenna performance either.   Soldering the surface mount parts isn't my issue.