White Noise

[B4stl3r]

Hi,

I used the schematics from https://github.com/Edzelf/ESP32-Radio/issues/66 and also used the transistors.

I still have some "white noise" left, which might come from the ESP itself. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/368867/esp32-microcontroller-generates-noise-on-microphone You can hear it very clearly until ~30% of max volume..

I tried serveral things, from using 2 different power supplys, also both of the VS1053 Lineout solution (which still has then the white noise issue). https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Widgets/MP3Trigger/vs10XXan_output.pdf Also tried several different amplifiers (but all class D)..

Will or want to use the PAM8610 in future.

Do you have the same isse or have any filtering solution inplace ?

Thanks in advance!

[Edzelf]

It is unlikely that the noise comes from the ESP32. The problem must be in the VS0153 or in the analog circuit. I never noticed a significant noise. Did you try a headphone on the VS105e output?

[utw3v0]

You could try an audio transfomer like the Monacor LTR110, that should help.

Greets

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Am 25. Dez. 2020, 11:23, um 11:23, Bastler notifications@github.com schrieb:

Hi,

I used the schematics from https://github.com/Edzelf/ESP32-Radio/issues/66 and also used the transistors.

I still have some "white noise" left, which might come from the ESP itself. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/368867/esp32-microcontroller-generates-noise-on-microphone You can hear it very clearly until ~30% of max volume..

I tried serveral things, from using 2 different power supplys, also both of the VS1053 Lineout solution (which still has then the white noise issue). https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Widgets/MP3Trigger/vs10XXan_output.pdf

Do you have the same isse or have any filtering solution inplace ?

Thanks in advance!

-- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/Edzelf/ESP32-Radio/issues/423

[B4stl3r]

yep, had the headset before.. unfortunately cannot remember if the issue already existed there..

removed the 3.5 connection and using pins instead right now.

[B4stl3r]

@utw3v0 i've already transformers in place.

here's what it currently looks like:

[utw3v0]

maybe a grounding problem .... theres a digital and a analog ground can you try to seperate them ? And maybe the esp is too close to the vs1053 so it might generate some em interterence ....

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Am 25. Dez. 2020, 12:22, um 12:22, Bastler notifications@github.com schrieb:

@utw3v0 i've already transformers in place.

here's what it currently looks like:

-- You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/Edzelf/ESP32-Radio/issues/423#issuecomment-751235247

[B4stl3r]

hi @utw3v0 , already read alot about it, but was not very clear, how i shoud seperate it.

also from the pcb layout of eXadra, i do not see, where the grounds are seperated.

also variated the distance between VS, ESP and SD reader with unfortunately no difference..

would love to give it a try, but don't really have a clou, what i should do.. Maybe you could give me some further advise?

thanks!!

Question...: VS1053, PAM on seperate "ground rail", ESP + SD Card Reader + Poti on different one and connect them through a single point? Answer: still the same

[utw3v0]

I'll give you my schematic, it works like a charm, theres an sd - card connection a well a ch376 wired but that's optional ...

Greets Werner

[utw3v0]

i've just seen on your picture that the vs1053 the esp and your am are hooked up to the same power source, try to separate them, at least your amp (8610) and the rest ...

[B4stl3r]

Hi Werner,

thx for providing your schematic, unfortunately it's still the same background noise :(

I also tried it with a second powersource for the amp (and also amp + vs), but issue keeps the same..

maybe my VS1053 is broken ?

[utw3v0]

I dont think that your vs is broken, i kicked out all of my breadboards, had always trouble with the cabling so i chose to solder everything, maybe you mic is activated and its amp is generating the noise ? Maybe your pam is making the noise it self ? Try a headphone without anything else except the esp ofc. Remove all unnecessary cables / modules .... my board pulls with ch chip and sd card up to 460 mA so your powersupply should deliver that on the 5 volts rail ... i use an powersupply for laboratory so its generating clean 5 volts with very low ripple try an pc speaker system to see if there is the noice too

[utw3v0]

Maybe you can make a video of the problem ?

[utw3v0]

Ive just seen your 5v and 12v gnd is connected via bridge, you should remove that bridge so the both grounds are not connected to each other

[B4stl3r]

Hi Werner,

thats what also my plan is, already preparing my perforated board, but with that white noise, i dont want to solder it..

just tried to record a video, just have an old iphone 5, sry .. https://youtu.be/cPeA3fRwi4I

The bridge does not matter if its going into the gnd of the 5V DC DC converter or directly..

Pam alone is absolutely silent.. (also tried it with another class D amp as written above, same issue)... just when i hook up everything together, this noise appears..

Maybe its still with the differentiated outputs of the VS1053?

found this..

so Gbuf is not connected to common in, its connected to VREF..

maybe have a look on the source: https://esp8266-server.de/Internetradio.html just let google translate the 3 blocks after the posted picture.

[Edzelf]

Meassure the pgnd pin, that is the common of the 2 analog outputs, with a voltmeter. It should be half the power voltage. If it is is 0 Volt, you are in trouble.

[B4stl3r]

measure between what exactly ?

https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/115/PAM8610-247304.pdf

[Edzelf]

Between ground of your power supply and the pgnd pin of the vs1053.

[Edzelf]

Meassure with pam connected and removed.

[B4stl3r]

assume between GND and VS1053 GBuf (audiojack out) ? it's always around 1,4xx V, regardless if PAM connected or not..

[Edzelf]

That's good. So it looks like it is not a wiring problem. Next thing to do is to replace the vs1053.

[B4stl3r]

dont have another one around :(

[Rainer-G]

Did you try with a larger capacitor ( 220µ or more ) on each power rail? I could not see any decoupling capacitor on your breadbord. If I put digital and analog circuits on such a breadboard, I found it a good practice to add capacitors for decouplig. Good luck Rainer

[B4stl3r]

Morning Rainer,

assume like this?

unfortunately no change.

[utw3v0]

Unfortunately in your video theres no noise su i guess it's the same problem like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bm22sN5hWE Im going in to a preamp and then an poweramp 100Watts and its working fine i also had it hooked up directly to the poweramp no problems at all ....

[B4stl3r]

Hi Werner,

you can hear the noise starting with 0:05.. its not a "loud" noise or cracking noise, its just rustling..

without the transformators its the same thing as in your posted vid but i'm using already audio transformators and still have some rustling left..

[utw3v0]

Maybe its your vs then but i can't imagine the chip is very solid and stable i soldered one and made my self mp3 decoder as you can see in my schematics without any disturbing noise ... its a weird thing .... can you post your schematics ? What if the esp and the vs are all alone ? Still that noise ? Maybe shorter wires it could pickup an interference from another source around your setup ....

[Rainer-G]

On your last picture, I can see that the ESP32 Board is not connected via USB to the PC, is that the case in all other testing scenarios? I'm asking because I had problems with setup ( Adafruit HUZZA32 and Adafruit VS1053, no tranformers, connected to a Tripath amplifier ). When conneted to the PC, I had some noise when volume was zero, it disappeared when I unplugged the USB cable! I have one VS1053 board left from my first tries before I switched to the Adafruit board. I you want, I can give it to you free of charge if you let me know your address. If there are no private messages possible an ED agrees, you can send him your E-Mail address and he can send it to me or pass my address to you. Cheers Rainer

[B4stl3r]

Hi Werner,

i also cannot assume that the vs is broken right now.. currently i'm switching my schematics all the time to find the issue.. i could really think that the esp32 is creating so much noise that it will interfere with the VS and therefore i'm getting noise in my audio. dont have a oszi around to measure that..

Hi Rainer, yes, i never connect the PC to the ESP.. code is already running, therefore no need to connect it to the pc. thanks for your offer, will come back to you if there's no other choice!

another option i think about is to lift the VREF pin from the PAM8610 and solder the GBUF to it as mentioned in a post above..

really weired.. trying around for several weeks now, really getting annoyed why i always have bad luck and issues that no one else is facing..

[B4stl3r]

maybe another idea..

i regulate the volume on the VS1053, maybe this can be the root cause?

as you also might have a poti onboard, does this poti regulate the amplifier input? or do you connect it to the ESP and regulate the volume also on the VS1053?

[utw3v0]

I can regulate from both, vs and preamp doesn't make a difference .....

[B4stl3r]

when you set the VS to <10% max volume and the amp to 100%, do you have then noise ?

[utw3v0]

Because of the ltr110 coils i can hear a sound when the volume goes over 50% everything else is too weak but theres absolutely nothing disturbing

[Rainer-G]

Given up or found the problem? If still a problem, I'd suggest to start from scratch: remove all wires, put the ESP32 on a breadboard and only connect the VS1053 board using the 5 Volt from the ESP. Use a powerbank or USB charger to supply 5 Volt and connect an earphone. Take absolute care that GBUF never ever is connected to GND! This will ruin the VS1053! Use the WEB interface to control the radio, check if a station is playing and then set the volume to zero. You should hear nothing, otw something is wrong. If silence is golden, connect one board after the other, repeat the noise check and continue, if silent. Finally, connect the PAM using the transformers. I could not keep my fingers quite so I did the first step with an ESP32 and the VS1053. As I heard nothing, I connected the VS1053 to my Tripath amplifier, volume zero on VS1053 and full on amplifier, silence! Not really trusting my ears, I cleaned up my workspace and connected the VS1053 to a scope and, surprise, I saw noise I did not hear before. Not a surprise, if was around 270 kHz, to higher than a human can hear! So, both the ESP and the VS work as expected, might be due to the proper cabeling, see utw3v0 remarks above!

Have a try and please let us know the results Rainer

[B4stl3r]

Hi Rainer,

still struggling ;) waiting until i get a oszi from a friend of mine.

will you update as soon as I have news ;)

Meanwhile, i added a mail to this acc, you can send me a mail ;)

Thanks for you support till now !

[xP373Rx]

You do not have to have a 300€ oszi for those kind of things any cheap ass oszi will be enough. i suggest you buy one it saves a lot of trouble especially when you troubleshooting noise..

Anyway .. the vs1053 makes noise when it is uninitialized/powering up. Make sure you intialize it ready to paly before checking things on noise. The best thing is put it in a board.

[B4stl3r]

Hi Guys,

so I have at least some news from todays work..

as you can see, I soldered everything on a perforated board.. everything is working (as before)...

Additionally, I checked my VS with headphones.. There's no noise at all when using headphones..

Noise is just comming, when I use the Transformers or the recommended circuit from the VS guys (http://www.vsdsp-forum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69)

Maybe the transformers are just shitty ? 10pc's for about 9$..?

[clear-sky]

hi all Maybe the transformers are just shitty ? i dont have this transformer but decided to know it as far as i know this tranformormer is 1:1 with 600ohm:600ohm impedance i found this in an old shop sansui st-71 http://www.op316.com/tubes/datalib/sansui-st.pdf resistanse between pins is about 50ohm my question is: has your well working transformer this parameters?

[B4stl3r]

Hi all,

would like to update you on this topic.. tried several things and also @Rainer-G is supporting me great.

I stepped a litte bit back to a minimal example (also with a different VS, just to be sure):

What can I say.. I can hear the white / purple noise also / already in the earphones when volume is below 40..

Tried it with several Powersources (USB from PC, 230V=>USB PS, Powerbank), the Noise is always present..

In case if anybody wants to try it out, here's my config: D: Starting ESP32-radio running on CPU 1 at 240 MHz. Version Mon, 19 Oct 2020 14:12:00 GMT. Free memory 294048 D: Display type is DUMMYTFT D: Partition nvs found, 20480 bytes D: Read 15 keys from NVS D: pin_ir set to -1 D: pin_enc_clk set to -1 D: pin_enc_dt set to -1 D: pin_enc_sw set to -1 D: pin_tft_cs set to -1 D: pin_tft_dc set to -1 D: pin_tft_scl set to -1 D: pin_tft_sda set to -1 D: pin_tft_bl set to -1 D: pin_tft_blx set to -1 D: pin_sd_cs set to -1 D: pin_ch376_cs set to -1 D: pin_ch376_int set to -1

D: pin_vs_cs set to 15 D: pin_vs_dcs set to 26 D: pin_vs_dreq set to 2

D: pin_shutdown set to -1 D: pin_shutdownx set to -1

D: pin_spi_sck set to 14 D: pin_spi_miso set to 12 D: pin_spi_mosi set to 27

Will keep you updated if there are any news to tell.

[xP373Rx]

Tr4y to power the esp through the 5v pin and also the vs1053 .. do not get it from usb

[xP373Rx]

i use this shield

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08GYFVR5X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and this board. Has to be powered through the DC jack with 7 to 12 v this is important.. Wifi works best with those boards when powered through the DC jack.

This works great . I have serval of them. No soldering or jumper cables required btw

IN setup put after WiFi.mode ( WIFI_STA ) ; // This ESP is

delay (500) ; WiFi.setSleep(false); // disable sleep fixes broken sound on 320 kbit streams!!

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08BTWK3VV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

works like a charm.. has also sd config is:

clk_dst = 1 clk_offset = 1 clk_server = pool.ntp.org # ir_40BF = upvolume = 2 ir_C03F = downvolume = 2 # mqttbroker = none mqttpasswd = *** mqttport = 1883 mqttprefix = none mqttuser = none # pin_ir = -1 # GPIO Pin number for IR receiver VS1838B pin_sd_cs = 13 # GPIO Pin number for SD card CS pin_tft_cs = 16 # GPIO Pin number for TFT CS pin_tft_dc = 17 # GPIO Pin number for TFT DC pin_vs_cs = 27 # GPIO Pin number for VS1053 CS pin_vs_dcs = 14 # GPIO Pin number for VS1053 DCS pin_vs_dreq = 26 # GPIO Pin number for VS1053 DREQ # preset = 1 preset_00 = 192.95.18.39:5784 preset_01 = 192.95.18.39:5784 # ChroniX | AGGRESSION

# toneha = 2 tonehf = 2 tonela = 3 tonelf = 10 # volume = 84 #

[Edzelf]

Why set the volume to 40? I usually set it to 76 and use a the volume control of the external amplifier to get a normal output level. The VS1053 volume setting should be as high as possible, but below the level of distortion.

[xP373Rx]

And yeah .. I cant hear any thing below 60 anyway ^^

[B4stl3r]

Hi @Edzelf , @xP373Rx ,

as you can see here: https://github.com/Edzelf/ESP32-Radio/issues/423#issuecomment-755647412 I try to replace the electronics from a old radio with new one..

But of cause i want to use the old switches from the old radio.

Therefore i want to use the switch poti for power on and volume control.

So I thought i use a amp with no volume control (pam8610) and regulate the volume via the VS..

First of all i also used a regular amplifier but when the volume is ~40% of the AMP, 100% of the VS and I power on the whole circuit, current rushes through the amp and creates loude noises in the speakers.. also I would need additional mechanics to "bride" somehow the old switchpoti with the volume poti of the amp..

[xP373Rx]

The issue is you are running the pam at full blast any noise or swiching spikes will get amplified to 100 % A proper amp usualy has nice filtered DC voltage. If you turn up your hifi amp to 100 for example You are gonna still hear some hiss and they have some nice filters in there.

The proper ways is to have an amp with volume control. it also could be that your input GND and output GND which are in the middle like at 2.5v do not match each other lets say pam input expects to get a signal with 0 at 2.5v and your vs has a signal of 2v at 0 your amp would be puting out energy all the time creating noises when there is no sound and this at 100%

This is why a amp should have its own isolated power source if there is no way to adjust the DC bias

[Rainer-G]

Hi all, the Corona Lockdown gave me some time to help B4stl3r and I want to share my findings. Most of them were already mentioned before in various threads, using the PAM8610 made some issues more paramount. The main issue the VS1053 brings along is the analog output referred to VREF and not to ground. This was solved in an earlier thread by using audio transformers to separate the different ground levels. This is good enough if there are no extreme high expectations regarding frequency and phase response. Two separate power supplies also help but do not allow the ESP to mute the amplifier using one of the GPIOs. The noise issue coming from the ESP32 through VCC / GND can be minimized by the layout of the power rails and filtering capacitors so it even works with a single power source and a PAM8403.

The PAM8610 has a much higher gain ( 33 vs. 24 dB ) so the the noise increases accordingly. Putting a volume control in front of the amp does not really help as the internal pre-amp still runs at highest gain and you can hear some pink noise even at lowest volume! Nevertheless, the PAM8610 is a very interesting chip: it has balanced ( differential ) inputs, a DC volume control and pop-up reduction. Unfortunately, the breakout board B4stl3r and myself are using does not bring out the volume control pin and the balanced input RIN+ and LIN+. But, new boards are available, I found one with a stereo potentiometer for volume control and one with a mono potentiometer for DC Volume control. I'm currently testing the one with the DC Volume control and, at first look, running it with volume zero no noise is audible, even if you put the speaker directly next to your ear. Definitely the best choice if you want a small amp with higher power than the PAM8403! If it had the balanced inputs available, it would even make the transformers redundant as you can connect GBUF to RIN+ resp. LIN+!

I will keep you updated Rainer

[B4stl3r]

Hi together,

@xP373Rx yep, correct, as you mentioned, the amp is always at full power.. the thing is, the VS Chip outputs a lot of noise after initialising, which will then be of cause amplifed extremly..

And as @Rainer-G mentioned, we also test different things on the amplifier side..

But in my point of view the question is, WHY does the VS output so much noise after initializing and when volume is muted or set low..

As you know, the VS chip has a lot of possibilities, maybe we just missed out something on how to work "properly" with the VS itself? http://www.vlsi.fi/fileadmin/datasheets/vs1053.pdf http://www.vlsi.fi/fileadmin/software/VS10XX/VS1053_VS1063_Equalizer.pdf

[xP373Rx]

Well on init i also have some heavy noise coming out of the vs before it is iniatlized as output. WHat i did since i also have a bluetoothmodule connected via relays on the output side. I switch the relays on after init.

Here all in one just the BT module is missing.

[xP373Rx]

What you also could do is pin the mute pin with a 10k resitor to off state and turn it on after init with pin that is not doing any funny stuff on esp boot

[xP373Rx]

I found a solution to the spi humming in the audio if using amplifiers..

Do not use the audio GND from the jack .. use the real GND pin on the board and put 100nf or 220 nf ceramic caps in series with the L and R channels to the input of the amp.

[B4stl3r]

Hi @xP373Rx I don't use GND (it's GBuf) from the Headphone Jack, I just use L + R with capacitors in series to the amp input.

when playing a silent mp3 file (https://bigsoundbank.com/detail-0917-one-minute-of-silence.html) I still have lot of noise..

When music is playing, you basically cant hear any pink noise.

Maybe you can give it a try.

[xP373Rx]

not sure what you mean .. so GND vs1053 and gnd input amp are connected??