Smokin

Would this be correct if I am eliminating the switches???

Edit - And... Are we getting 12V power from pin 12 and grounding from pin 10?

jjbunn

Yes, to both questions.

Smokin

Thanks for the quick reply... Julian... I was just looking at your hand made board... I see the LED on your board but not on the schematic... Can someone show me where the LED is on the schematic. (Sorry for being dense... I just don't see it)

jjbunn

I added the LED: it's not on the schematic. You just need to add a 1.5KOhm resistor in series with an LED across the +12V and Ground lines. Then, when you connect the circuit to the 964's socket, the LED will glow to show you have power. It's not necessary, but inspires some confidence :-)

I think it would be nice to have another couple of LEDs in the circuit that showed send and receive activity on the K line, but I haven't got around to adding them on my board yet.

cowtown

Rick, the board looks good. I don't know how many are also looking at the 993 thread, but we got some prototype boards made also. These particular PCBs cost a little over $20 each, but there's probably room to put two complete layouts on each board, as well as cheaper PCB houses.

I don't have a 964, but if you just jumper SW2.2 to SW2.1, and SW1.2 to SW1.1 as Rick shows you should be good to go.

I've got the board working (early 993) and Ray's building one now.

Colin

Smokin

Colin... Yes... I've been following the thread over there. Great info. That's where I took the PCB layout from. It didn't turn out near as nice as the one you have but it was my first ever try at doing a PCB. I'm hitting Radion Shack tonight and getting enough stuff (hopefully) to build several boards. I'll take another stab at trying to make PCB as nice as the one you post here! I just need some different paper to make the transfer and a smaller drill bit for drilling the holes.

By the way... Is there any benefit to having the copper on both sides of the holes? I'm not sure why they are on the other side except to keep the parts from coming off.

EDIT - Sorry to be a pest... But I see where the one capacitor goes but what goes in <c2> and <c3>... My apologies if it was covered earlier in this thread...

cowtown

I used a service to make the boards - I've never had the guts to try one of those home PCB processes but now I think I should.

The through-plating allows doing all your soldering on the back side of the PCB, which is nice because you can get right on the component leads (components are on top) and also not worry about your solder bridging any traces on the top side. But the traces are so big and widely spaced that this probably isn't a big deal for this board.

(C2) and (C3) are for additional capacitors as recommended by raycm. He put some part numbers up recently. I don't have these yet, and am just running with C1 right now.

Colin

Smokin

I just stopped by Radio Shack and bought all the stuff to make this. Actually I bought enough to make two boards. If I can get the first one to work I'll redesign the PCB without the switches and add the LED as Julian did.

I'll keep everyone posted!

Smokin

Okay... I have almost everything soldered... I am left with the RS-232 connector. The schematic shows a 9 pin configuration but my laptop has a 15 pin configuration... Do I need to buy some sort of converter or can I just use a 15 pin connector but only use 4 of the pins? If so... Which pins?

Anyone have an idea?

Heirsh

hmm, a laptop with a 15 pin serial connection? I thought they were either 9's or 25 on most all computers. Other examples of 15 pin ports are the gameport (2 lines of pins, just wider than a db9)and I think the dense vga connector(normal these days) is 15 (3 lines of pins). You sure that port isnt one of those?

Smokin

Actually... After looking at it... I think the connector is for an external monitor. Should I go the USB route as others have?

BTW... I have everything all soldered and ready to go... With the exception of the link to the PC. The connector you sent me looks like it will work perfectly!

Thanks again!

Heirsh

Just be careful with it smokin. You may want to invest in that really nice polarized connector advertised earlier. I'm considering splicing in an off the shelf connector to the wires as an alternative myself. I'm always careful connecting it, but it only takes 1 time to fry your board.

I have a USB adapter at work that I used for 232 connections to plcs and related stuff that seems to work flawlessly. I would get one that others say works, but I dont think you'll have a problem.

Good luck!

Smokin

Not to beat a dead horse... But I'm a little stumped here. I found a 9 pin to USB connector that I had in a bottom of my computer "hell drawer." I would think that I could use this to plug into the female 9 pin connector that I bought and just plug it into the USB slot in my laptop. The connector was originally made for my "Cyberpower" UPS. The UPS has a serial plug on it that I hook up to my PC... They included the connector just in case I didn't have a 9 pin connector on the back of my PC I guess... I'd love to try it but don't want 5V going to the wrong place.

Any thoughts?

Laurence Gibbs

Just guessing but I think usb will be a different protocol to a serial port (hence the adapters) I doubt a cable without other parts would do the job. With regards to the correct paper for making the pcbs you could try a product called Press n Peel , it's designed specifically for pcb making, you might even find it at radio shack?
Oddly before I went on holiday i started designing a board for Rays design. By the time i got back from holiday Colin had one done and dusted. My design was far less elegant than Colin's and I had not finished it either. Nice one Colin. I know how difficult it is to use these pcb design programs. How long did it take you ?

LeRoux Strydom

You should let us know if you find a usb-serial converter that works. I have one that will only connect to the CCU at the 4800 baud rate. The Motronic connection requires 8800 baud which my usb-serial refuses to connect.