#1325b TinySA ULTRA Spectrum Analyzer Teardown

Episode 1325b
A quick look inside the new TinySA ULTRA

[tomstrum]

Thx much for the "Tear down & Board Analysis" ....I wouldn't ever pop my good working "Ultra" open just to look !! Well done "Under the Hood" report & now I know what I have !!....Thx again....

[jspencerg]

I just pitched in a few bucks a month. I've enjoyed watching your videos this year. Thanks for helpful advice on learning.
Hope you can spring for some minty new T&M gear.

[joeteejoetee]

The oval shaped traces are used as "BOM cost=Zero" ULTRA low inductance capacitors for microwave frequency filtering and/or decoupling power & noise sources from one another.

[andymouse]

Even quicker ! there's a lot of these 'mini' instruments around and they are generally well made...cheers.

[vincei]

The minicircuits ADE-25MH+ mixer is a 5 - 2500 MHz model. IF is characterised to 1.5GHz and the LO to 2.5GHz. Datasheet says LO to IF isolation is 32dB. It's mystery how -10dBm is getting out of this sucker unless the mixer is suspect. The ADF4351 is a wideband synth. If I remember correctly that can produce lots of spurs especially if it is being swept. If you're interested look for the OpenTechLab [005] 4.4GHz RF Synthesizer Board ADF4351 Theory, Setup, Reverse Engineering, Experiments ; here on YouTube.

[digitalchaos]

Nice teardown vid! Hate to be the guy here, but if I remember correctly, that stm32f302c8t6 is a 72MHz processor. Not sure if they're utilizing the full speed in the Ultra or not though. 😎

[johnwest]

I checked the US supplier of these. Their web page said they were "In Stock." So I ordered it immediately. It said my order was complete. Then the next day I got an email notice saying it was on back-order. I'm going to assume that their website didn't keep up with the actual stock. But it could also be looked at in a less than kind manner.

[jspencerg]

The LiteVNA goes to 6GHz. Now tiny SA ultra to 5GHz. Is it time to up the Hz in your garage?
One of your bargain finds for a vintage 26 GHz HP SA would fit the bill.
I'm still growing into my 8561E.

[Mark-hbzf]

Lots of I/O on the left side of the board. I bet someone will get creative with those.

[Dmitry-lk]

Hi, I see that MCU in your Ultra is STM32F302CBT6 with 128k flash, but the original firnware for Ultra builds for STM32F303 and has 176k size. Does it have some different hardware revisions? Did you try to upgrade firmware to the last one?

[arashghasemi]

What are those perforated holes on the gnd copper plate ? Could you please talk about those in details? Thanks for your great work and unmatched energy level.

[jeffreywyke]

EDIT: The battery is 3000 ma...NOT 300! Pretty plain to read...