LowPowerLab Forum

Hardware support => Moteino => Topic started by: G550_Pilot on April 01, 2018, 06:20:34 PM

Title: Is this the correct way to solder an SMA plug to the R6-USB
Post by: G550_Pilot on April 01, 2018, 06:20:34 PM
Just got more of the R6-USB and I need to get more range out of them so I want to solder the SMA connector to it for use with an external antenna. Here is a picture of how I "think" I need to place it, but want to make sure as it seems that the legs of the SMA adaptor end up touching other pads.

Thanks

(https://i.imgur.com/AaRvMPm.jpg)
Title: Re: Is this the correct way to solder an SMA plug to the R6-USB
Post by: sparky on April 01, 2018, 07:32:06 PM
Looks just like the photo Felix posted of a SMA on a Moteion
Title: Re: Is this the correct way to solder an SMA plug to the R6-USB
Post by: G550_Pilot on April 01, 2018, 09:11:24 PM
So just solder the center pin and the one to the right of the pin (toward the center of the board)?
Title: Re: Is this the correct way to solder an SMA plug to the R6-USB
Post by: perky on April 01, 2018, 09:26:01 PM
I would centralise it more so the outside pin of the SMA is a lot further away from RF output (i.e. that pin  is closer to the outer IO pins). What you have there is a small capacitor between the ground and the RF pin, and even a few pF is significant at those frequencies.

Edit: I'd actually go one step further and remove that outer pin from the SMA connector completely. If you assume that even has 0.1pF capacitance the impedance at 1GHz is 1/wC, or 1/(2*pi*1e12*0.1e-12), or about 1.6ohms. So at RF thats 50R output impedance of the RFOUT with a 1.6ohm to ground.

Mark.