??? Are you sure you have the ground clip attached correctly? Nothing is making any sense here. I can't see how it would be even remotely possible to have a higher frequency after the clock divider - there is nothing else between - just a the clocks/mux/divider. If you have good signal at the mck output of the cronus you should have mck/2 at the mck at the hermes mck out to the amanero. You need to be sure CS (clock select) is pulled either clearly high or clearly low - don't leave it float.

It is easy to check the divider for correct operation just run the cronus alone and check the clock signals at the 1:1,1:2,1:4 clock divider header. It may be that the divider is damaged or needs solder rework? Take a close look around it.

Could it be the isolator ?

I have checked everything so many times that I am fed up. It`s all well soldered and in place. Can we please eleminate this presumtion for always?

Today I connected the dac with the ufl coax wires for all the signals except mck. For the mck I have used a single straight wire and it`s acting the same as when there is the coax wire with gnd connected on both sides. So it wasn`t the 4th ufl, the one with the mck that was causing ground loops when connected in the circuit.

I am thinking to disolder the isolator and solder in place some wires from one side to the other for gnd and the rest of the signals except for the power supply .

If I do this will the warranty be voided?

What do you say? it`s a smart ideea to proceed with?

Also something tells me you may need to simplify your power supply scheme.

Power up order of devices is important.

DAC must have a clock present in order to receive I2C - and should never have any input voltage if there is no supply voltage present.

You might try to simplify things so that your controller (I would stick with on-board until you get things up) only starts when that DAC actually ready to receive commands.

See if you can power DAC(with on-board uC) and cronus from same supply.

The trick debugging things it to try to eliminate variables - your setup initially had quite a few :) That's not a bad thing - as long as it works. :)

Edited by user Monday, February 29, 2016 12:06:58 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I wouldn't be so quick to rule anything out. Start with the simplest possible thing to test and move from there.

Just power it with the same supply on both ends - 2 short pieces of wire will do the trick. :) You are testing for good signal operation - not isolation. :)

Edited by user Monday, February 29, 2016 4:03:35 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

In the end I have disoldered the isolator to see if it really was him.
I have soldered in place straight wires.

It still acts the same as first when with the isolator in. After I have risoldered the isolator back but it seems it`s not working anymore. Maybe from overheating when disoldered.
Now I have finished with two problems: the first one and a broken isolator board.


image1.JPG (93kb) downloaded 9 time(s).


It starts to become sad ...

Now I am powering cronus and b3 from the same regulator.


When powering b3 alone I get no ac/dc signal at his mck header so this is ok.

For cronus the same thing, when I power it alone it works correctly I get the right mck and mck/2 at the outputs.

Now when I connect b3 mck input at cronus mck header, on amanero side I get exactly double the frequency that has to be.

Here you can see the mck at b3 header where it is clean as always as you say.

image1.JPG (116kb) downloaded 9 time(s).

In this photo you can see what cronus sends to the isolator. This is when setup for mck/2.

image2.JPG (106kb) downloaded 8 time(s).


Maybe now you will ask why I didn`t use another channel to monitor both outputs at the same time. That is simple, to keep away any ground loops.

I did the test with the laptop powered from ac outlet and battery but the results are the same.


This time there were no ground loops and no bad soldering joints. It is only cronus which is not working properly.
Now there are months since I am trying to say this to you but you always put the blame on something else.

At the begining you said maybe it`s bad the firmware of the controller that you shipped with the b3 and to try another controller so I`ve built one with display (to see the sampling frequency) that showed better the problem which cronus has.

After this you still put the blame on other things but neither a time on cronus.
Ok so I went ahead and bought a scope to see for real what is going on. With the scope at first you still wouldn`t want to admit that there is something wrong with cronus. But now you can see clearly that it`s not serving me for the purpose I bought it. I hope it`s cronus and not the dac !

Now to find this out I spent some money and time


I hope we can find a solution to this.

Thank you

Edited by user Tuesday, March 1, 2016 6:43:35 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Make sure you check both clocks (bring CS high and low) as you may simply have an XO with low output drive.

I have never powered up cronus with more than 5.5v