🕒 Adafruit Si5351A Clock Generator Breakout Board - Versatile Frequency Range from 8KHz to 160MHz [ADA2045] Review

Pro: Ideal replacement for older quartz crystals. Using the Arduino it was easy to program the exact frequencies of all three channels. Cons: Really need a choice of output connectors.

Capable little chip - read Adafruit documentation and sample code. In purer integer mode, it's somewhat limited in the frequencies it can produce, but I was able to find a ratio that did what I wanted. Unfortunately, the circuit I connected it to turned out not to work even when I used it to input a specific frequency, but with no fault of the module.

If you don't want to program your own microcontroller and want to build a high performance DDS from scratch using separate components, then this is a top of the line POS clock. Currently using it as a VFO/BFO for a radio project.

Great little device. Easy to connect and program with Arduino. The only downside, although not for me, is that you have to solder the pins if you go this route.

Capable little chip - read Adafruit documentation and example code. In purer integer mode, it's somewhat limited in the frequencies it can produce, but I was able to find a ratio that did what I wanted. Unfortunately, the circuit I connected it to turned out not to work even when I used it to input a specific frequency, but with no fault of the module.

I wanted to use the Si5351A in a project and thought it would be worth testing its programming and capabilities with this breakout board. I connected to Raspberry Pi4 I2C. The easiest way to get the required values for each frequency is to use Silicon Labs' ClockBuilder Pro, which generates all the register settings. I manually requested 40 frequencies (from 500kHz to 20MHz in 500kHz increments) and put them into a CSV file, then wrote a program that reads the CSV file, finds and tunes to the…

The hardware setup for this module is done with just a few cables, and the "Clock Assistant" from Silicon Labs helps to set up up to 3 clocks and (from version 6.5) even when generating a register configuration function in an independent platform 'C' header file. NV-RAM is used for Si5351A registers, so the clock starts running even after power cycling. There is no need to "turn on" it to use clock signals in projects, only when it is necessary to reconfigure the registers (which should extend…