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Seeking Your Interest in Roadtesting a Digital Isolator Board

rscasny

Hi All.

imageI had a call with one of suppliers who is interested in roadtesting one of its digital isolator boards. We have not done much with digital isolators in the roadtest program. But given the need for circuit isolation and the safety they provide, I wanted the community to roadtest this product. In addition, another reason was the learning experience the roadtesters can provide community members on this product.

Here is some basic information on this board:

The evaluation kits are designed to evaluate the MAX22563−MAX22566, a family of reinforced, six-channel, galvanic digital isolators in a 20-pin SSOP package.

Two types of evaluation boards are available:

  • The MAX22565CAEVKIT# is fully assembled and tested, and comes populated with the MAX22565CAAP+ (Not used in this roadtest)
  • The MAX2256XAEVKIT# is a generic board that has U1 unpopulated, allowing to select a device from the MAX22563−MAX22566 family. This is the kit that will be used for this roadtest. The MAX2256XAEVKIT# comes with U1 unpopulated and supports the following digital isolators: MAX22563BAAP+, MAX22563CAAP+, MAX22564BAAP+, MAX22564CAAP+, MAX22565BAAP+, MAX22565CAAP+, MAX22566BAAP+, and MAX22566CAAP+.

imageEquipment needed for roadtesting:

You need some test equipment to roadtest the MAX2256XA EV kit:
• MAX22563−MAX22566 device if U1 is unpopulated on EV kit. (The roadtester and I will get together to order the desired device needed.)
• Two DC power supplies with output range of 1.71V to 5.5V
• Signal/function generator
• Oscilloscope
Note: The EV kit should be powered from two independent isolated power supplies with nominal output voltage in the range from 1.71V to 5.5V. To evaluate the electrical parameters of the device without any isolation between the two sides, a single power supply can also be used.

Element14 would not provide the test equipment.

Roadtesters would need to have the bench equipment for this roadtest. If you are an electronic design engineer, you likely have access to most of these equipment. This seems like a lot to ask, and it is. But I think this is a valuable roadtest to offer the community. The reviews the roadtesters write would not only be good learning experiences, but would also provide customers more than a datasheet to select a digital isolator when the need arises. 

Here's some documentation on the board:

Datasheet
Manufacturer's page

For Additional Information

Here's a couple of polls for which to vote:



Parents

  • I wouldn't apply for this Road Test. I use digital isolators in my designs but not like this. The board is set up to replicate the kind of tests done in a data sheet. If i didn't trust the supplier to have done the tests in their data sheet I wouldn't be buying their parts at all - so I have no interest in replicating those tests which are usually designed to test key parameters with as little interaction with other things as possible.

    But when you actually use a part you don't care about that - you care about how it works in real life. And if you can solder the chips to the test board you could solder them into your own board.

    I think a much more useful demo board for these parts would have 0.1" pin headers for IO and an isolated DC-DC converter to power the remote side - it could be about 1" square and easily patched into an existing design or hooked up with wires.

    MK

Reply

  • I wouldn't apply for this Road Test. I use digital isolators in my designs but not like this. The board is set up to replicate the kind of tests done in a data sheet. If i didn't trust the supplier to have done the tests in their data sheet I wouldn't be buying their parts at all - so I have no interest in replicating those tests which are usually designed to test key parameters with as little interaction with other things as possible.

    But when you actually use a part you don't care about that - you care about how it works in real life. And if you can solder the chips to the test board you could solder them into your own board.

    I think a much more useful demo board for these parts would have 0.1" pin headers for IO and an isolated DC-DC converter to power the remote side - it could be about 1" square and easily patched into an existing design or hooked up with wires.

    MK

Children
  • in reply to michaelkellett

    If this roadtest had come up just over a year ago I would have applied because I could use the board for the same scenario that I created one for.  It would have required modding to drop input signals to 5V (from circa 220V)  and I would have had to buy (or be provided) some SMA to BNC and SMA to croc clips (eventually modding the board to remove them) and eventually modding to add the DC-DC converter.  I don't know whether that would be useful for the supplier because it's only slow, pulse-based, one-way signals, but it would have been a real-life scenario.  I'd have needed the parts to create the mods of course but that would be a good exercise in utilising the isolator rather than purely testing with a pre-built dev board and nice clean signals from a function generator.

    If I didn't get selected, I might even have bought one of them to do it - I think it would have worked out cheaper but it would be a close call on that basis.  

    I agree a real-life scenario would provide more useful results if a range of sufficiently different scenarios could be chosen from.