EtherREGEN: The long development thread. [Some Gen2 dev. pics and update starting on page 92.]

[LowMidHigh]

7 minutes ago, Bernstein said:

@Superdad

Do you have sind picture or concept pics of the outside?

What is the heat dissipation of the unit? Can it used in a closed enclosure (cabinet). 

 

The enclosure has been mentioned many a time here:

Identical to the LPS-1.2

[Bernstein]

1 minute ago, LowMidHigh said:

 

The enclosure has been mentioned many a time here:

Identical to the LPS-1.2

 

You’re right! I was just curious to know how the inputs are located etc. 

[Bones13]

sounds like both flat surfaces are covered with the SFP, ethernet ports, clock port, and power input, with one LED light as well. not at all sure which ports are on which side.

[Bones13]

On 6/11/2019 at 12:17 AM, Superdad said:

Okay gang:

After many days and nights of John's painstaking--and mind-numbing--labor, along with a few last critical surprise part changes based on availability (for the better), the final layout and routing of EtherREGEN is done!!  And the pre-production boards are on order.

 

Below is the board (remember this is a 6-layer board so not everything is visible); The wide grey line that cuts across is the moat between the 'A' side and the isolated 'B' side.

365 parts total (though 300 of them are tiny, but specially chosen capacitors and resistors).  That's a lot of parts for a board that is just 100mm x 106mm.

 

Now we wait a few weeks for the boards to be produced--and hope that they work perfect or need only a few tweaks.  I am paying in advance for procurement of all the PCB parts for the first 250 unit run.  About $60K up front.  Color me excited and nervous...

 

This is no ordinary Ethernet switch!

 

 

Next up: A dear friend and industrial designer/architect is doing the CAD work for the milling and silkscreening of the casework.  We'll be collaborating to get all the openings and labels just right so that I can get the enclosures on order shortly.

 Here is an early render of the board itself. Imply whatever you want, but I see the SFP, and a gang of ethernet ports on the top end (B?), and a single port, and clock input (with switch) on the bottom right (A side?), with power, LED (and perhaps ground screw) on the bottom left (more B side)

 

My guesses, and, assuming the board still looks like this.

[tboooe]

I know this is all conjecture right now until the product is officially released but hey, its fun to hypothesize about audio right?

 

Anyway, right now in my 2 pc setup, I have my HQP and NAA machines connected directly using a Blue Jean CAT6 cable and IPV6.  My HQP pc has a dual fiber and single copper nic.  The fiber nic is connected to Cisco Catalyst 2960 switch which is connected to a wireless bridge via copper.  

 

My initial thought was that I would plug everything into the EtherRegen, replace the Cisco switch and I would no longer have the direct connection between the HQP and NAA pc.  However, I got to thinking that perhaps keeping the direct connection is still superior.  In that case, I would still keep the Cisco switch and put the EtherRegen in between the HQP and NAA pc's.

 

I would appreciate any thoughts on this especially if the EtherRegen incorporates the advantages of a direct connection in a 2 pc set up.

[Bones13]

I think we would all be interested in you trying both.

 

I have a much simpler system with my NAS as a Roon server, and my streamer/DAC/Pre getting direct ethernet input. I will be replacing a cheap 5 port ethernet hub with the etherRegen. The 100m port going to the streamer and the other ports going to the home switch, Oppo BluRay, and Roku devices that all live in my audio stack.

[Superdad]

8 hours ago, Bernstein said:

You’re right! I was just curious to know how the inputs are located etc. 

 

Graphics and precise milled opening positions for the case are being finalized this week. I'll post those pics the moment they are done and we will turn in the production order for the cases.  Trying to avoid being impacted by the Japanese "Natsu-yasumi”summer holiday August 10th-18th (our cases are custom-made in Japan).

[JohnSwenson]

9 hours ago, Bones13 said:

 Here is an early render of the board itself. Imply whatever you want, but I see the SFP, and a gang of ethernet ports on the top end (B?), and a single port, and clock input (with switch) on the bottom right (A side?), with power, LED (and perhaps ground screw) on the bottom left (more B side)

 

My guesses, and, assuming the board still looks like this.

The A side and B side are actually logical constructs, albeit mostly physical as well. The "moat" separates the A side from the B side.

 

The A side has the 4 port RJ45 jacks, the SFP cage on the "front" of the case and the LED, power jack and grounding screw on the back. The B side contains the rest, single RJ45 jack, switch and external clock BNC jack all on the back.

 

John S.

[auricgoldfinger]

21 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

The A side has the 4 port RJ45 jacks, the SFP cage on the "front" of the case and the LED, power jack and grounding screw on the back.

 

Can a mini spade be held in place by the grounding screw, or is it really intended to be used with naked wire?

[Superdad]

13 hours ago, auricgoldfinger said:

Can a mini spade be held in place by the grounding screw, or is it really intended to be used with naked wire?

 

Sure, a mini-spade is fine.  The thumb-screws I am ordering have a typical flange.  It is a 6-32 size screw, so plenty small enough for a small spade.

 

Just a reminder to others reading:

Use of the ground screw is recommended only if whatever power supply you are using is “floated”—i.e. its DC output cable’s -VE (“ground”) is not actually common to AC mains ground. An example of such being our own UltraCap LPS-1.2.

But the UpTone-branded SMPS that will ship with every EtherREGEN (same custom unit as what we ship as charger for LPS-1.2) is internally ground-shunted. So when powering EtherREGEN with this stock supply it is not at all necessary to use the ground screw terminal.

[thyname]

23 hours ago, Superdad said:

Use of the ground screw is recommended only if whatever power supply you are using is “floated”—i.e. its DC output cable’s -VE (“ground”) is not actually common to AC mains ground.

 

Alex: do you know whether SOtM sPS-1000 is floated? I asked them this question directly via email, and have not received a reply yet.

 

I already have this lying around, and would prefer to not spend the money to buy a new LPS

 

And if it floated, I would simply connect a Grounding cable from the etherRegen to the wall ground outlet?

 

Thanks!

[tboooe]

On 7/9/2019 at 3:09 PM, Superdad said:

As long as you are crossing the “moat” from one side to the other, the benefits of our special active isolation, ultra-low-hirer differential flip-flops, and femto clocking will be obtained. 

And even on the multi-jack side we made a number of efforts to passively isolate the ports from one another (12-core per port magnetics and center-tap grounding and capacitors).

 

In my NAP + NAA set up, does it make any sense to set up the EtherRegen so both PCs are getting a "clean" signal?  I was thinking of connecting my wireless bridge and NAA pc to the A side and my HQP pc to the B side. This way, the signal crosses the most twice, once going into my HQP pc from the wireless bridge and once going into my NAA pc from the HQP pc.  Or is all that matters is the final device getting the clean signal?

 

[Superdad]

4 hours ago, thyname said:

Alex: do you know whether SOtM sPS-1000 is floated? I asked them this question directly via email, and have not received a reply yet.

 

I might indeed be floated--and dangerously so.  Take a look at the below photo and notice that the ground pin of the IEC AC inlet is not attached to anything (and there are just two wires going from that board to the transformer).  That is illegal and unsafe (except for double-insulated products, which the sPS-1000 is not).

 

[Superdad]

30 minutes ago, tboooe said:

In my NAP + NAA set up, does it make any sense to set up the EtherRegen so both PCs are getting a "clean" signal?  I was thinking of connecting my wireless bridge and NAA pc to the A side and my HQP pc to the B side. This way, the signal crosses the most twice, once going into my HQP pc from the wireless bridge and once going into my NAA pc from the HQP pc.  Or is all that matters is the final device getting the clean signal?

 

You have me a bit confused--about the crossing the moat twice stuff. You might need to post a diagram of your system. 

 

But again, there is no "clean side" or "dirty side."  There is just the moat separating the two clock/data/power domains.  And ideally the DAC-attached device is alone by itself on one side or the other. But its certainly okay to put two end-point renderer devices on the 'A' ports side and feed in from the rest of your network via the 'B' port.

 

Hope that helps. 

[Superdad]

4 minutes ago, thyname said:

So when I get the EtherRegen, I should definitely use the ground post on it, and run a grounding cable to the wall outlet?

 

Probably.

[tboooe]

47 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

You have me a bit confused--about the crossing the moat twice stuff. You might need to post a diagram of your system. 

 

But again, there is no "clean side" or "dirty side."  There is just the moat separating the two clock/data/power domains.  And ideally the DAC-attached device is alone by itself on one side or the other. But its certainly okay to put two end-point renderer devices on the 'A' ports side and feed in from the rest of your network via the 'B' port.

 

Hope that helps. 

Sorry for not being more clear @Superdad.  I understand the idea of no clean or dirty side.  As long as the signal passes the moat then the EtherRegen will do its magic.  I am trying to take advantage of this concept by having the signal pass the moat twice, once as the music is transferred from my wireless bridge to the HQP PC and another time when the HQP PC transfers the upsampled music to the NAA PC.  I am wondering if there is any advantage to sending a clean signal to the HQP PC or is all that matters is the NAA PC getting the clean signal. Here is a diagram:

 

 

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, tboooe said:

I am wondering if there is any advantage to sending a clean signal to the HQP PC or is all that matters is the NAA PC getting the clean signal. Here is a diagram:

 

Thanks for the diagram.  I still think the best set up for you will likely be with the NAA connected to the sole 'B' port, and all other connections on the 'A' side.  

Of course everyone is encouraged to experiment! 

 

I'll probably post the case artwork tomorrow.  Last little tweaks being done.

And I think the pre-production boards will finally arrive by the end of this coming week (you'll all recall that a part datasheet error caused us to have to scrap the first set of bare boards even before any parts were soldered on).

 

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.  It is starting to get really hot up here in Mariposa! 

[Ricardo007]

@Superdad @JohnSwenson

I have ISP contract for 200Mbps. My ISP integrated modemrouterswitch is connected to a cisco 2960 switch and from theres to my network audio. I plan to buy etherregen and add it after the cisco.

Now my question is the following:

By using etherchannel i can aggregate 2 100mbps copper ports for higher speed 200mbps to the etheregen side A. For streaming service use would that be in theory better?

[BCRich]

I think there is only one 100mb port the rest are 1G.

[tboooe]

16 minutes ago, Ricardo007 said:

@Superdad @JohnSwenson

I have ISP contract for 200Mbps. My ISP integrated modemrouterswitch is connected to a cisco 2960 switch and from theres to my network audio. I plan to buy etherregen and add it after the cisco.

Now my question is the following:

By using etherchannel i can aggregate 2 100mbps copper ports for higher speed 200mbps to the etheregen side A. For streaming service use would that be in theory better?

Streaming high res uses way less than 100mbps so there is no need to aggregate.  In my system, even DSD512 uses only about 50mbps.

[gstew]

Alex / John (or anyone more networking-aware than I am who can answer...),

I'm as eager as anyone to get my hands on the EtherRegen.

My audio-only computer audio setups are fairly simple yet moderately refined... RPi 2B endpoint with various I2S-connected DACs, receiving Delock FMC, sending Trendnet FMC, ZyXEL switch, Zotax ZBox PI320-W2 nano-PC as a music-file server, and a WiFi router configured as a Wifi endpoint to provide wireless control connectivity. No streaming, no internet connection at all, all devices have linear supplies, somewhat optimized (but primative compared to many of the recently hot setups).

I've started taking a look at what configurations I'll try at first. I can see 3 useful configurations:

- Moving the Delock FMC to the sending side and using the EtherRegen as a final optical to wired ethernet converter, retaining the ZyXEL switch and keeping everything else as before.

- Removing the optical links entirely and replacing the ZyXEL switch with the EtherRegen where the sole "B" side port would provide the Ethernet connection the RPi and everything else is connected to the "A" side.

I have 2 questions about using the EtherRegen in these ways:

1. Of course the RPi 2B is limted to 100Base-T 100 Mbps. I'm assuming the wired ports in the EtherRegen will auto-negotiate down to this, but thought I'd ask to be sure. Truth?

2. To use the EtherRegen as an optical networking endpoint, I'll need an appropriate SFP optical module and an adapter cable. I believe this adapter cable will suffice to go between the DeLocks and an appropriate SFP optical module:

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01663TTCE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3KXHMB5SA7Q9Z&psc=1

BUT what SFP optical module will work ok?

TIA!

Greg in Mississippi

[R1200CL]

22 hours ago, gstew said:

Greg in Mississippi

Your link doesn’t work

 

And I suppose you’re asking what SPF Module fits the cage of the EtherRegen ?

[Nenon]

On 7/14/2019 at 12:04 PM, tboooe said:

Streaming high res uses way less than 100mbps so there is no need to aggregate.  In my system, even DSD512 uses only about 50mbps.

 

Don't forget that there are other use cases.

In my system (Euphony/Stylus), when I hit the play button, the track gets downloaded from my NAS to my music server, loaded completely in RAM, and played from RAM. It would take close to 3 minutes to download a 2GB DSD512 track over 100Mbps connection. Luckily my files are not that big at the moment, but if they were, I would have to wait 3 minutes between tracks...

I read the technical explanation why the port is limited to 100Mbps, but it is kind of a bummer.

 

[tboooe]

38 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

Don't forget that there are other use cases.

In my system (Euphony/Stylus), when I hit the play button, the track gets downloaded from my NAS to my music server, loaded completely in RAM, and played from RAM. It would take close to 3 minutes to download a 2GB DSD512 track over 100Mbps connection. Luckily my files are not that big at the moment, but if they were, I would have to wait 3 minutes between tracks...

I read the technical explanation why the port is limited to 100Mbps, but it is kind of a bummer.

 

Agreed but I thought the original question was regarding specifically streaming services like Tidal, etc.  

[kennyb123]

Are we there yet, (super)dad?  😐