- Why are resistors R1-R6 (100 Ohm and 390 Ohm) different from the recommended in the PCA9615 datasheet (120 Ohm and 600 Ohm)?
- At what speed on the I2C bus will the communication length by 100 feet (30 meters), as stated in the SparkFun advertisement? The PCA9615 datasheet says no more than 3 meters at a CLK=1 MHz.
1 - someone made a design decision and it worked when they tested it.
2 - give it a try and see what speeds work for your application.
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Usually, developers strictly apply the recommendations from the datasheets. If you set other resistances of resistors R1-R6, then there must be good reasons. For example, using a connecting cable with a wave resistance of not 100 Ohm, but 90 Ohm. But this should be written in the user manual, right?
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The cable length can be, for example, 300 meters, if you reduce the clock frequency, for example, to 1 kHz. Therefore, a person who buys a QwiicBus board expects a length of 30 meters at any clock frequency (including 1 MHz), which is incorrect.
I think you might be confusing hobby grade parts with commercial grade parts. Sparkfun carries hobby grade parts made for hobbyists, not commercial grade parts made for professionals.
For $12, it will either work for you or it won’t. If you’d like to spend $200, I’m sure you can get a part that’s guaranteed and has a ton of paperwork stating it will work under whatever conditions you specify and comes with a full users manual.
I’ve used these before and all I can say about them is they worked just fine over a random 100’ Ethernet cable I found laying around but your mileage may vary.