Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Comments on Unterminated SPI bus needs expansion board to work properly

Post

Unterminated SPI bus needs expansion board to work properly

+5
−0

I'm supporting a piece of legacy hardware that routes the SPI bus through a set of headers to an expansion board. Since the expansion board doesn't actually use the SPI bus, we simply ignored the incoming SPI lines when we revised the expansion board.

However, we are now experiencing seemingly random errors on the SPI bus, as it communicates with two devices on the main board. Since there is no source or end termination present on the SPI bus, it makes me wonder if the extra capacitance of the expansion board was enough to prevent reflections.

The main board will not be revised for some time, so I would like to figure out what modification (extra capacitance? resistance?) I could make to the expansion boards that would help prevent SPI reflections, or if there are other possibilities that I'm not thinking of.

I should also mention that this is a low-power, battery-operated system. The top speed for SPI communication on this board is about 1MHz.

It seems like a similar question to this: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/33372/spi-bus-termination-considerations

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

Let's check if transmission line effects apply to your SPI bus. What's the raise time of the SPI dig... (3 comments)
Let's check if transmission line effects apply to your SPI bus. What's the raise time of the SPI dig...
Nick Alexeev‭ wrote almost 2 years ago · edited almost 2 years ago

Let's check if transmission line effects in you SPI bus are appreciable. What's the raise time of the SPI digital signals? What's the mechanical length of the SPI bus?

TimH‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

I'm not sure what the raise time of the signals are, but they are being driven by an ATmega128 running at 8MHz. The physical length of the SPI lines wouldn't be more than 10 inches without the expansion board connected.

Nick Alexeev‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

Raise times can be measured with an oscilloscope at the output pin of the device which is driving the line.