Tag: PCM3060

I fixed a wiring error on the board I was having problems with. I now get 2 of the 3 outputs I expect to get from the chip. The ADC is giving me the BCLK and the LRCLK that I expect but I still don't see any data on DOUT.

I'm using an electric guitar as my analog input. This has two implications for me: first, the signal from the guitar is a pretty low-level analog signal. This shouldn't prevent me from seeing data coming from the ADC, however. The other problem is that I need to strum the guitar to generate a signal, and strumming while holding an oscilloscope probe can be an exercise in manual dexterity. I'm thinking of building an analog waveform generator to use as a test input signal while I do further troubleshooting.

I'm going to pore over the datasheet to try to figure out why I'm not getting any output on the DOUT pin. Hopefully I missed something simple.

How do you deal with the frustration of prototyping a circuit, only to find that it doesn't work as you expected it to?

I'm prototyping a circuit for the Renesas RX Design Contest that uses the Texas Instruments PCM3060 audio CODEC. I'm basically copying someone else's schematic. And I can't get it to work as expected. I'm feeding the CODEC a clock signal but it's not giving me any data from the ADC. I etched two circuit boards and both have the same behavior. I don't know what the problem is. Did I wire it wrong? Did I damage the chips? I don't know.

Very frustrating. Very demoralizing. In times like this I think of all the time and effort I put into a design and prototype, and the frustration that it gets me, and wonder why I do it.

Hopefully I'll get an answer to the question I posted on TI's forums about this problem. I don't know how to make any progress from where I am now.