The excitement about the LimeSDR Mini was very high and I
could not wait to get my hands-on mine as part of the early backer program
through Crowdsupply. Compared to the
original Lime SDR, the level of frustration has been a bit higher though, so I
have waited in sharing my experiences as to not add further “internet reader
confusion”.
What is a Lime SDR?
Lime Microsystems is a semiconductor and single board
software defined radio (SDR) vendor headquartered in the United Kingdom. The LMS7002M field programmable SDR (FPRF) chip is the heart of the Lime
SDR and Lime SDR MINI. This chip is essentially a radio on a chip that enables
wide band frequency applications. The Lime SDR transceivers are primarily
marketed to the professional RF design and integration ecosystem.
Ham radio operators are not the intended core
market of Lime Micro, but there are many boards currently in use by those in
the amateur radio hobby since both devices are open source architecture which
appeals to both those interested in hardware and software aspects of software
defined radio.
The Lime SDR MINI is a nice step up from the inexpensive $20 RTL SDR dongles that are limited to a maximum of 3 MHz wide bandwidth since the Lime SDR MINI can show 30 MHz wide at one time.
The Lime SDR MINI is a nice step up from the inexpensive $20 RTL SDR dongles that are limited to a maximum of 3 MHz wide bandwidth since the Lime SDR MINI can show 30 MHz wide at one time.
 |
| (RTL SDR dongle shown using SDR Console software to decode a FM broadcast station and its sub carrier and RDS information) |
The Lime SDR MINI is the latest product offering by Lime Micro and
provides a nominal 15 mW transmit power output and receive sensitivity like that of common
VHF/UHF hand held radios. The transceiver can operate anywhere from 10 MHz to
3800 MHz at full duplex and up to almost 31 MHz bandwidth.
Some Curated Material
Here are some helpful links to ensure yoy did not end up with
a defective piece of equipment since documentation and support is not well
defined which leads to early adopters blaming Lime Micro for a "busted unit" when its more a case of "user issues".
My goal was to utilize the Lime SDR MINI under a Windows
environment compared to my preferred Linux distribution, Ubuntu for a variety
of applications which will be further reviewed here on HVDN.org in future
articles.
Helpful LimeSD Mini
Files
The correct USB device driver for the Lime SDR MINI - The Lime SDR and the Lime SDR MINI use different USB
drivers. My installation of Windows 10 64-bit version was able to find the
right USB 3.0 driver right away, but I changed it to the version offered by
FTDI, so it appears in my device manager more accurately. The original Lime SDR
used a driver provided by Cypress Semiconductors which made it slightly more
compatible with popular SDR software applications such as SDR# and SDRangel.
Here is where you can download the correct USB 3.0 drivers
for Windows for the Lime SDR Mini
Latest Firmware
(Gateware) - My LimeSDR MINI came loaded with version 1.18 in late
January 2018. I upgraded to 1.22 and then to 1.24. Here is where to find the
latest firmware, which is really called gateware (new term to me)
Under the Limesuite 18.04 folder is where to find the 1.24
version files. Future new versions should be found here as well.
How to upgrade the
LimeSDR MINI gateware - Before doing this, you should use the LimeSuite to verify your
Lime SDR Mini works. There has been a lot of confusion the past few months as early
adopters got frustrated in trying to get the Lime SDR MINI under Windows. Linux
did not have as much an issue.
LimeSuite can be found here: http://downloads.myriadrf.org/builds/limesuite/
At the time of this article, version released on April 6th,
2018 was used.
After installing Limesuite and ensuring your USB driver is
correct, go to “Options” and select “Connection Options”. Your serialized Lime SDR MINI should appear
like below. Click the “Connect” button.
Now, let’s run a basic test to read the internal operating
temperature of the Lime SDR Mini.
Quick Lime SDR MINI Test - A helpful application which automates the myriad test
parameters in the Lime Suite can be found here and is pretty easy to run.
Upgrading the Lime
SDR MINI Gateware - It is simple to upgrade the gateware. Here is where you go
to check which version you currently have installed
Receiving your first
transmission with the Lime SDR MINI under a Windows environment -The easiest software to get working with the Lime SDR MINI
is the SDR Console Ver. 3 provided here:
Next Steps
Receiving signals in the next article in the Lime SDR MINI series here on HVDN.
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