Gps on the CF-29

New idea for connecting your 408 gps engine to the CF-29
Remember the old cdpd modems that were on the daughter boards for the CF-28s?
Did you throw them all away?
I hope you saved them.
I tore a few of them apart and cut the ribbon cable connector section from the rest of the board, removed all the surface mount components and cleaned them up.
Using a 30 conductor ribbon from the 50 conductor connector on the 29, it turns out that there are pads on the cdpd connector board to solder to.
See the pictures.
Hope this helps..

Bob

 

GREAT POST! This will make it a lot easier to solder things together instead of solder to the end of a ribbon cable. Just so happens I have a huge box full of these... I'll have to go count...

Though I already have about 30 ribbon cables already made up for an upcoming job...

Great job Bob! Rep to you!

 

I beat you to it Rick lol

I know the both you and Teo have the ability to solder small wires on the end of the flat wire, but most of us here do not
I remember when the gps mod was first talked about this was a suggested solution
I have thrown out dozens of the rim modules from various Toughbooks over the years ,just to clean up the clutter
There was posts a while back talking about purchasing the flat cable connector by itself, but for ease of connections you would want to interface it to a pcb

Alex

 

Well... I have about 25 pounds of these... as well as the original LAN and modems cards... I have pretty much an even amount of CDPD and RIM modems... The CDPD modems have 30 in connectors and the RIM modems have 50 pin connectors. I think you could probably use either one.

But after looking at the mod, for me, I'll stick with the soldering to the ribbon cable directly as (Again... for me) it makes for a much neater installation.

However... This may not be the case for everyone.

To review... If you were to use the CDPD... You would either have to use a 40 pin ribbon cable and cut down one end to 30 pins to fit the modem connector. -OR- You need a 30 pin connector to fit the CDPD modem connector and situate the ribbon cable correctly to one side on the motherboard connection.

The reverse of this is true for the RIM modem.

Still a neat hack though... It is sure to help many people out. I have a bunch of both... Free to whomever may want them... Just pay for shipping.

 

The rim modem has a 22 pin connector and 1mm pitch so they will not work for this.

 

Ahh... You are correct, of course... I forgot about that. It is a WIDE connector though.. It was the ribbon cable coming form the RIM board to the mobo that I was thinging of...

 

Thanks for the info
We should all just take a break from posting
We are going backwards
Bob must be interfaced with the right contacts though
Or his setup would not work

Here is a post from Teo stating that it’s a .5mm pitch

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3423841+

Alex

 

Alex, In that instance Teo was correct. He is talking about the connector that goes on the mobo. The mobo connection (for the GPS) as well as the RIM board itself are all .5mm pitch cables. Even the CF-18 is... But the connector on the CF-29 is 40 pin and the connection on the CF-18 is 50 pin. Both are .5mm... It's been so long since I pulled a RIM modem off the RIM board that I had forgotten about the difference in ribbon cables.

 

RIM modem to daughterboard is 22 pin 1mm pitch, Sierra CDPD modem to daughterboard is 30pin .5mm pitch. Ithink the confusion is in referring to the daughterboard as a RIM board when in fact RIM is just the brand of a particular modem that is used on the daughterboard. Clear as mud?

 

No but Teo and Toughbook know what your talking about

The breakout from the m/b connector that Teo uses seems to only have about 10 conductors
The connections that are needed do not need the full amount I suppose
At least that is what he supplied me for the gps kit for my cf-29

Alex

 

Correct... Everyone (Including me) has shortened it from "That Panasonic Daughterboard that the RIM modem is attched to that connects to the connector beside the RAM" to just a RIM board or daughterboard. It has a part number printed right on it... But Heartland and Panasonic both have no record of it. If you look up the part number on Google... It shows as a stove part.

 

LOL -

You know, way back when in ought-seven when we were still doing the GPS hack on CF-28s, I suggested the same notion of "re-purposed PCB" from the RIM card as a means of making that connection to the motherboard for the "soldering challenged" in cases where the daughterboard was missing... people told me it was more trouble than it was worth.

So... to all you people who said that... I say

PTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!! :tongue:

mnem
That great wheel comes around again...

 

You know... I do recall that...

You should have posted pictures.

LOL