Teardown ZS-2102-A

Components

2 × U6, U9 Analog Digital Converter Microchip MCP3313-10

1 × R24 Current Measurement Shunt Resistor Vishay Precision Group CSM-series Y14870R100

2 × U1, U3 Instrumentation Amplifier Analog Devices AD8422

2 × U7, U20 Differential Amplifier Texas Instruments THS4521

1 × U17 USB FIFO FTDI Chip FT2232

Project Logs

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Hardware Overview
Tom • 11/26/2019 at 17:40 • 2 comments
When opening the housing,
there are some eye-catchers:
- The part numbers of the instrumentation amplifiers and of the differential amplifiers are burnished away.
- The white wire which connects the negative supply of the differential amplifiers.
- There is no galvanic insulation between the USB port and the measurement circuit.
The PCB is assembled single sided, probably it is a 4 layer stack-up.
Using a microscope i was able to read the part numbers of the burnished components. You find a list of the key components in the components list!
The clock output of the device is connected directly to the CPLD pin using a 33 ohm resistor.
From the hardware perspective this devices looks well designed with little discomforts:
- The 4mm banana connectors do have a very bad quality
- There is no galvanic insulation between the measurement circuit and USB

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Discussions

Tom wrote 05/26/2020 at 04:42

regrading the banana connectors.

i usually use the multicontact (stäubli) banana connectors, yes they are more expensive but i think the highest quality banana connectors

Are you sure? yes | no

prajay madhavan wrote 12/21/2019 at 03:16

The banana jacks used are from a reputed company in the USA

( Cinch Connectivity Solutions)

https://www.digikey.in/product-detail/en/cinch-connectivity-solutions-johnson/108-0902-001/J151-ND/5929

We have tried out a few thousand insertions into the jacks without any issues. If you can describe the quality issue in detail, we could rectify it for our next revision.

Are you sure? yes | no

prajay madhavan wrote 12/20/2019 at 13:10

Hey Tom, this is Prajay, the designer for the ZS-2102-A.

Regarding the banana jack quality, is it related to the insertion force or the contact resistance which is the concern. I could not find anything more compact, which has an insulated body and non symmetric so that it does not rotate freely if the nut goes loose.

The white wire is actually to solve some noise issue which could not be solved by any other means.

I agree that rubbing off the part numbers is not a good idea. I was just trying to get some guys from copying the hardware cheaply. I stopped doing that on the newer releases.

For the galvanic isolation, I found it better to use a USB High Speed Isolator like the Hifime USB isolator. These work well with the ZS-2102-A.

Any comments on the performance or the software is very much welcome.

Are you sure? yes | no

Teardown ZS-2102-A

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