Arduino spectrum analyzer in development

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Synoptic Labs is developing a low cost USB 2.4Ghz spectrum analyzer. For those unfamiliar, these devices are used to identify wireless interference which can cause trouble for wifi networks –

Rob and I have recently been talking about doing some wireless projects. A friend loaned us a Cypress CYM6935 module which is an evaluation module for the CYWUSB6935 chip and today we attempted to hook it up. We chose an Arduino board simply for convenience though connecting the module to it actually took the bulk of our time today since the 2mm pitch pin headers on the module won’t fit into a breadboard. Also, the Arduino runs at 5V and the Cypress chip can’t tolerate voltages that high so we had to drop the 5V signals from the Arduino down to 3.3V. Fortunately I had a Futurlec 5V to 3.3V level shifter board on hand so that problem was easily solved.

Once we got the module wired into the Arduino we had to figure out how to communicate with it. Thankfully, that work has largely been done already and we borrowed code written by Lars Englund (available here) to test the communications with the chip. This code was written for an ATMega8 so a few of the port definitions needed to be changed to make it run on the Arduino’s ATMega168, but this was fairly painless.

– Talking to a Cypress CYM6935, photos

Related:

Homebrew spectrum analyzer project
&
DIY spectrum analyzer cleans up your wireless signals

In the Maker store:

ProtoShield for Arduino Kit
&
Breadboard