Connecting a PCM5102a breakout board to a Raspberry Pi

What could i do with my two old Raspberry Pi’s i ask myself, maybe using them as some kind of network speakers for my daughter was the answer.

That was when i came across those neat little cheap audio DAC boards you can buy for cheap on ebay, aliexpress etc which really improve the sound of the Raspberry Pi. We all know the audio jack is unuseable on these devices.

So i ordered one of these boards in the country behind the great wall to see if i can save the money which i else had to spend on a Hifiberry.

If you don’t know how these devices look like here you got a photo, you can find them simply searching for pcm5102a:

What made me a little nervous was the fact that there are 11 pins to be connected. The good thing was that after a little bit of research i realized that only 5 pins are really needed, all the others are mainly connected to GND.

One short warning before i tell you how to hook the board up. If you have an old Model of the Raspberry Pi which only hat the 26pin extension port please make sure you have a v2. That can be recognized by the pads labeled P5 below the extension port. There are some important I2S on this and you have to solder Pins to it. The really first Raspberry Pi Versions didn’t had that port, so you should have to search for the pins somewhere on the PCB, which didn’t makes any sense for me.

Okay lets connect the Board.

For Raspberry Pi with 26pin P1 and 5pin P5

PCM5102a <–> RPi

VCC <–> Pin 2 (P1)

GND <–> Pin 6 (P1)

FLT <–> GND

DMP <–> GND

SCL <–> GND

BCK <–> Pin 3 (P5)

DIN <–> Pin 6 (P5)

LCK <–> Pin 4 (P5)

FMT <–> GND

XMT <–> 10k Resistor <–> 3,3V of the PCM5102A board

 

For Raspberry Pi with 40pin P1

PCM5102a <–> RPi

VCC <–> Pin 2

GND <–> Pin 6

FLT <–> GND

DMP <–> GND

SCL <–> GND

BCK <–> Pin 12

DIN <–> Pin 40

LCK <–> Pin 35

FMT <–> GND

XMT <–> 10k Resistor <–> 3,3V of the PCM5102A board

 

Just a short explanation what all of the grounded pins do.

FLT: Filter select. GND for normal latency, pull up (10k 3,3V) for low latency

DMP: de-emphasis control. Low = off, high = on

SCL: if to GND internal SCK will be generated from BCK

FMT: audio data format selection. Low for I2S (high for Left-Justified)

XMT: pulled to GND = mute, pulled high via 10k to 3,3V un-mute

 

Here you got a picture of my setup:

Now you can install Volumio etc on your Pi, enable I2S, select the Hifiberry DAC and play your Music.

Btw these breakout boards play nicely together with a PAM8302A Chipamp 😉

13 Gedanken zu „Connecting a PCM5102a breakout board to a Raspberry Pi“

  1. Hi Björn,
    „Btw these breakout boards play nicely together with a PAM8302A Chipamp“
    Wie groß ist die Auswirkung, wenn du den Verstärker (nicht) verwendest?
    Beste Grüße
    Sascha

  2. Finally, someone knows that you must connect all of the pins of this particular board. I was pulling out my hair until I stumbled across this page!

  3. Hi thanks for the information. This is wat i was looking for.
    However I still fail to get it working.
    I have the Same RPI as you have in the photo.
    My DAC is this one
    https://www.robotics.org.za/PCM5102?search=dac

    I fail to get any sound from it

    I don’t have an LCK Line, I have an LRCK Line

    I have chose Generic/Simple TI5102 DAC.

    But No Joy

    any help would be welcome

    thanks

  4. Hello, thanks for your post ! I am spending hours to put FLT (low latency) on high. I tried to put as you mentionned a 10k resistor from FLT pin to 3v3 but nothing happen, checked with RTL utility. I can’t find this resistor value on the datasheet. I am using GY-PCM5102 card. Do you have an idea of what going wrong ? Thank you

    1. Simply wire the FLT to 3.3V to see if it works. The pullup is only needed so the value cant float.
      If that doesnt work if have no idea because i didnt use the funktion by myself and i do not own the exact board you use.
      You could also check if the pin is connected to the corresponding pin of the PCM5102 at all.
      Wouldnt be the first time a board supplier makes a mistake.

      1. Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately it’s worse, if I wire FLT to 3.3V I have no sound, will continue my investigation. Lucas

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