High Speed Voltage Level Shifting…I have never had any luck with any breakout board. Supposedly the https://www.adafruit.com/products/1875 TXB0104 can do SPI at 20Mhz…No it cant! It can not even go 5Mhz! So I have been looking around and found this http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74lvc2t45.pdf ! Its a 2 bit Bi-Derectional voltage level shifter capable of translating 3.3V to 5V at 420MBit! And yes it works! I could only test it up to 20Mhz driving a strip of APA102 using a Raspbery PI(without using a booster pixel to do the voltage level shifting) The only problem is they come in these ULTRA tiny little SMD IC’s ! I’m simultaneously happy and disgusted of my mounting job but I had no alternative. Anyone know of a place that could manufacture these on a breakout board?
I see 74HCT’s mentioned a lot around here, and this one is through-hole: https://www.adafruit.com/products/1787
How many do you need to manufacture?
@Jason_Coon , does that one work well? I’ve mostly only seen the 74HCT245 suggested. It’s a bit of a large chip but certainly easy to solder as a DIP package.
If you buy the US8 or SM8 version here is a breakout board:
http://www.breadboard-adapters.com/open/OTHERS/US8
http://www.breadboard-adapters.com/open/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=sm8
Get yourself a tiny tip and a flux pen and watch those
Soldering Tutorials:
I’ve got some of these to try if I need them.
http://s.aliexpress.com/RzqueIf2
I think they’re supposed to be good to 110Mbps
q: what 3.3V->5V level shifters (pi->ap102) work 50mhz or above? also, candidates for <2V-> 5V drivers working at speed?
@Jason_Coon The datasheet on for that IC doesnt mention the data rate at all. It has rise and fall times, but unless its been tested by someone on here to drive APA102 at high speeds its not so great
@Michal_Canecky If its cheap to make, maybe like 50! I think id sell them on ebay to others. Its a far better IC than any other Level shifter ive tried
@Juergen_Bruegl I have those break out boards, but my soldering skills are not good enough to solder those tiny pins! I ended up soldering a single copper strand to each pin then hot glueing it, then soldeing those strands to a breakout board…I know its scrap
@Jeremy_Spencer Those are from te same faimly as the TXBxxx ICs. Have you actualy tried them before at 5Mhz and above? because the TXB4 and TXB8 do not work!
@Morgaine_Fowle_de_la I can not test above 20Mhz as i dont have a good enough scope, but the IC i mention in this post is supposed to be able to do 420Mbit from 3.3v to 5V
@Leon_Yuhanov I’ve not tried them yet. I’ve been using SK6812s but am about to start using APA102s and got the level shifters to try. When I get time to play with them, I’ll let you know how well they work
@Leon_Yuhanov I can make you 50 breakout boards for $300
@Michal_Canecky Can i get in touch with you via email?
@Leon_Yuhanov I have a store on Tindie, https://www.tindie.com/stores/FemtoCow/ You can contact me via their system and we can go from there.