cf-28 internal port (cn18)

Very happy with myself as I got a set of connectors and a ribbon cable made up to go onto the internal port under the battery. I don't know if anyone has posted on hooking it up before, couldn't find anything with a search so posting to confirm the internal usb (bt_usb+ and bt_usb- on page 92 of the service manual) works as a normal usb port, not a bluetooth only port.
It doesn't conform 100% to usb specs as there is no current regulator on the 5v line, you need to use one of the 5v supplies around the bottom of the port. This isn't a problem, a lot of cheap hubs do the same thing, but it may be worth putting a decent hub straight onto it so power hungry dongels ect. can have their supply cut when sleeping.
There are a few photos of the cable on the yahoo toughbooks group, their not really much use to anyone they are there but just in case.
Noticed I got quoted a second time (weee ) on the chinese gps receivers. True, they are a bit bulky, did anyone find a source for something a bit more compact? Serial for preference but usb would be ok.
cheers

 

Stan... Interesting on the USB findings. I'll be looking inside for that soon too as my father-in-law is sending me 12-14 USB fingerprint scanners. I mentioned to him that I wanted to try to mod one into the CF-28 to enhance security and he said that he had a bunch he was ready to throw out as they have upgraded to scanners built into their machines. He runs the IT Dept at a University. Anyway... I'll be looking into something similar soon.

 

Oh toughbook. I think I know how you could help me out in regards to what we discussed. PM me and I will let you know what I am thinking.

 

Fingerprint scanners would be cool, but I'd be locked out of my own machine after almost any day at work.

Now if only we could do eye scanners

 

Modly. I left a post in another thread to toughbook. I got the "consoles" today but they are the whole center console for the electronics etc.. They are not the laptop mounts. Let me know if you still want it.

 

Sure, that'd be great. My console is out of a Taurus, and isn't mounted in, and is beat up...

PM me with how much you want for it and shipping.

 

I will check on shipping for you tomorrow. PM me with info and I will take care of it. I refuse to charge someone for something that didn't cost me a dime.

 

Hey toughbook...Check this out... http://cgi.ebay.com/Billionton-PCMC...ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

you could use this in the hidden pcmcia slot on your 28 and make it stealth if you want fingerprint rec... Just an idea...

P.S.
I am always looking for a way to use my dremel tool i guess..

 

I already posted that once but i forgot the thread tittle and nobody listen. Don't you know that i had already taken a part one of the usb gps receiver and its perfect for that area. I have taken out the patch antena, install an antena connector(from sb300) and later the antena all the way to the LCD panel.I am now on the process of mounting the module permanently. CN(A) is the same as CN(18)


Here it is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=189644&page=4

 

Never really thought much about security (linux) but an encrypted partition key and the root password on a fingerprint scanner would be usefull sometimes. Worth looking into, true about abrasions on the fingers at work though, any idea how well they deal with that?
Easy mounted too with that port straight under the left hand rest. Getting into it would be easy enough if only the usb where needed, two cuts in an something like an LCD ribbon cable would separate the 2 usb wires and a 5v line and the case is earthed (great stuff magnesium ).
If cutting the case it could be worth fitting a switch too, I did a test yesterday and battery life was down by around 8% with just a bluetooth dongle plugged in. Weee, internal bluetooth. Sounds much better than "cut up usb lead wrapped around a few times with a dongle stuck in one end and the wires jammed in some sockets on the other" bluetooth
Ophil, I did come across the post before but had around 4 other forums open at the time so only scanned over it. Did you use a panasonic internal card to connect up to the port or hack up a cable too?
A panasonic card would make it a lot simpler but I don't know if all the connections make it as far as the cards or if they have a ribbon cable with only 5 or 6 wires just for the connections needed. If anyone has a card could they check?
Will have a look at the GPS thread later, a usb receiver sounds like it would make the most sense. I have a cf card receiver with an identity crisis here (it thinks its a serial port) but that under the battery along with a cf to usb adapter wont leave much room. Tried to find info on how a cf card shows up as a serial device but no luck so far.
Modly, cheers for hosting/linking the service manual. This thing had such an easy life until it got here, probably with some cop typing at three words a fortnight, it doesn't know what has hit it now and it's all that manuals fault. Mwwaahaahaaaha...
cheers

 

Oh but what stories our toughbooks could tell from their former lives, if only they could speak!

 

Got a card built up and mounted. There are more images in the files on the yahoo toughbook group in case anyone wants them.
Found a source for a ribbon cable. Needed to strip a dead dvd burner for some screws and it had a 54 strand ribbon of the same pitch. Had cd drives to bits and they had smaller ribbons in them so guessing there are more strands are for all the extra stuff the head needs to do.
Works ok but the reception is terrible so going to need antennas on both the bluetooth and wireless. Can anyone give me some advice on them? I was thinking a couple of copper wires heated and embedded in the plastic cover might be enough but I haven't got a clue about antennas.
cheers

 

Wow, good job man! I think I'm gonna be hitting you up for some advice and info.

 

Thanks Happy with the way it turned out, wasn't expecting to have that much space left.
Glad to help out. Trying to put together a detailed description of all the pins but there are a few to many '?' in it at the mo.
cheers

 

I wanna bring this thread back up to the top. Stan, How did you connect the CN-18 to your board?

 

I think his work is more ideal for those without a daugtherboard by bringing all 50 pin accessable for all option that you may think, Like you can either extract the usb, and at the same time you install gps module.My idea is just to extract usb option, You don't need 50c flat cable if you don't have, instead used a flat cable just to accomodate up to usb pin At least 15c and above.

 

The panasonic daughterboard is definitely the simplest option, whole lot cheaper than a mainboard should things go wrong to. I'm up to my neck for the next few days but will try to put together something soon.
The hardest part is getting the ribbon cable. I found a cable that would be usable in a dead DVD drive. Otherwise it can be ordered by the meter from any major electronics suppliers, both radiospares and farnell have it. Its 50 way 0.5mm pitch ribbon cable:
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/br...Ntt=50+way+0.5mm+ribbon&Ntx=&_requestid=92107
Both also have the connectors, not a lot of use without a PCB but good to know if, for instance, the latch on the keyboard connector had a little accident
cheers

 

I received my soldering station last night. I'm going to attempt to get the GPS working by soldering straight to CN-18 using Stan's pinout guide in the other thread. I'll keep everyone posted.

 

as i checked the cable on cd rom drive, yes! it is 50pin/c but some of those conductor are not isolated. What i mean is that you can't get the 50 lines.

 

Toughbook, saw the gps thread, your soldering straight onto the motherboard? Have you any dead cd drives around? Failing that the keyboard and screen cables are the same pitch and would work pushed up to one side before locking.
If you really want to go straight onto the mobo then I wish you the very best of luck hand soldering 0.5mm pitch. I have never tried soldering with one but one of the cheap hobby microscopes may work, if not they are very cheap and come in handy for reading surface mount chip markings.
cheers

 

Stan... That is my problem. The soldering iron is small enough... The wire is small enough, my solder is small enough... Everything is keyword SMALL. I need a good magnifying headset. The eye loop I have is no good. It's great for checking out diamonds... not for soldering!

 

Holy cow!! only automatic machine can do that your probably the most steadily hand that i have ever seen. there is another way i think if you still have a cble not really 50c, why not to solder the gps pin directly to a cable ribbon and then cut a bet all those unuse one That way it is more easy.

 

Small pitch and surface mount is mostly done by hand using a heat gun but that only works for components sat in place and sitting on powdered solder/flux compound. If there is nothing on the underside of the motherboard around there and you already have it out it could be worth pulling off the connector that way.
I would practice on something else first though, it's quite easy after a while but I wrecked about 4 old P2 processor units before I got it right.
cheers

 

Stan... Yes... I practiced on an old CF-28 mobo. I can solder it... IF I can see it! I'll get some magnifying lens glasses and try again.

I do ohlip's suggestion about sodlering to the ribbon cable but they are in short supply too. I really want to go straight to the mobo.

 

Ok! here is what i do to my little m34 when i soldered directly to mbo. I accidentally got the other line, you know the distance between each other, i separated the line by slitting a blade between them and when i tested with the multimeter that they are not grounded anymore, I put a bet of an epoxy to strenghten its connection and to isolate them. Let dry, and you have a line that can be move without worrying its connection/connectivity.



It is only just a suggestion but in fact i done it.

 

Toughbook

You might want to try something like this http://jackstoolshed.zoovy.com/prod...er_Lamp__Dual_Power_2X_5X__36_Spring_Arm.html and I would suggest getting at least the 5X magnification for what you doing.

 

Cadillac... That is the same one I was looking at on ebay! I'll see what happens at X-Mas. I told my wife I wanted one.

Ohilip.... I'm not sure I know what you mean but it does give me a few ideas.

 

Ok! here is what i mean to explain, that when i soldered the gps cable directly to the mbo.................... thats what happen and what i've done.

 

Okay... So did you get your GPS working by soldering it directly to the mobo? Is it the same type we are working on?

 

Yes! for the gps its working and No! not the same module, its 20 channel holux gps and i sold it allready a week ago. The buyer is from italy( cf-m34)

 

Stan... After probing the daughterboard with the multimeter and each of the 5 leads suupying the GPS and/or connecting to CN18... I have figured out that it isn't pins 23 & 24... It is pins 27 & 28. In the Service Manual they are labeled as; Pin 27 CFG_SIN2 & Pin 28 CFG_SINOUT2.

I have my soldering station though it leaves much to be desired. Beware of anything labeled Quakko! I guess it works fine I just have to turn the heat up further than I'd like to get the tip hot enough to make the solder flow.

I did stop by Harbor Freight to pick up a set of head-mounted magnifying glasses. They give 1.8x & 2.3x with the regular lenses and with the flip down monicle it goes to 3.7x & 4.8x on the right eye. Close enough to get me there I think.

My order for more daughterboards should be here any time. I will be building another GPS Toughbook... This time taking pictures along the way. I didn't have time last night when I put another one together to list on ebay.

I'll keep everyone posted! I really want to do away with the daughterboard all together!

EDIT - Stan... I took more measurements. Please see if you can figure out what it means. Measurements were taken with the GPS unplugged and from where I soldered to the end of the ribbin cable. I figured I wouldn't worry about measuring anything other that GPS IN & GPS OUT... For now anyway.

So... When I was measuring Pin 3 of the GPS... Pin 27 on the ribbon cable showed 20k resistance (If I had my settings correct.) and pin 28 showed 0 resistance. BUT... When I measured pin 4 of the GPS... I got Pin 27=0 resistance and pin 28 showed 20k. (At the end of the ribbon cable.

Does this make sense to you?

 

Another piece of the puzzle. That means the standard GPS is coming in through the second serial line, so the first serial line must be used by the modem.
On the daughterboards, I'm working on a breakout board for cn-18. I didn't want to say to much about it in case I can't get it working but it would be worth holding off on the daughterboards considering the price. I'm looking at the start to middle of January but at the very least can have a schematic to get some PCB's etched.
Plans for the moment are just for a board to go from cn-18 to a 50 way ribbon header (IDE cable so it's easy to get hold of). Once I know I can mill 0.5mm pitch then can look at expanding it. 0.5mm is not cheap to get etched but getting a few done would be a hell of a lot cheaper than the daughterboards.
Again, nothing is certain until I have got everything tested but at the very least I will have a (open to all) schematic from which boards can be etched.
cheers

 

Stan.... Why not just use the same type of connectors as the daughterboard? I'm sure they can be had. Or are you talking about a cable that starts out like stock and ends in something easier to solder?

 

Rick, that'd be the best goal if we could find such a connector. The ones of the proper pitch are obtainable, it's just that soldering them is hard work, and it's also hard to make boards to support it.

My actual plan of attack on soldering a connector like that at home is to just "try my best" at soldering the pins to the board, and using a solder wick when I was done to grab the extra (There would be alot of it).

 

No notification again, would love to find out what causes that as I get the same problem on linuxquestions.org.
Anyway... I was planing on using the IDE header as cables are common and easy to split up. The REAL reason is that while doing a PCB layout using eagle the mix on metric and imperial was giving me a pain in my arse as individual pins would not place in a straight line so I dropped in the first 50 pin header that was big enough to solder to easily.
I have no idea what the plug on the daughterboard looks like. I'm guessing it's 2 rows of pins sticking out, if so they will probably be 2.54mm spacing which is standard for just about everything that isn't tiny.
Nothing is set in stone yet anyway. I have to get the miller running first, if all works ok and 0.5mm is possible then anything that can be converted to g-code (40 year old CNC file format that's still very popular) will work.
BTW, the rough layout was around 2 1/4" by 1" without any screw holes or mounting points.
cheers

 

I always wanted to learn G-code. I could hand over a disc to my friend, and he'd make me anything I wanted that way.

I am still working on learning how to use Eagle.

 

I took CNC classes.. drilling holes is simple. pretty much all you have to do is turn on the hole milling canned cycle and give it a depth, feedrate, and return height. then you just give it x & y coordinates for each hole! the canned cycle does the rest. once you're done, cancel the canned cycle and rapid back home. that's it!

 

You've got that advantage over me. I work in a machine shop with all manual machines. None of which can do small work like we need on a PCB either.

I'm getting better at Eagle though, which is a good thing... but I can't find any 50-pin connectors out of it's extensive list. Stan, know of any labels I should be looking for?

 

I'm guessing there are better formats than g-code, especially with 3d modeling getting so much simpler, but it seems like the most portable in common use. Modeling Gandalf's head might be a bit to much for it but it seems ideal for usefull stuff like PCB's.
From what I've seen relating to g-code so far it looks like most folks automatically convert from other formats like jpeg's for 2d and autocad formats for 3d, then do a 'find and replace' on the generated g-code if needed.
If anyone has any suggestions for other formats then I'm all ears as I haven't started coding the bit to turn g-code into movements yet and it would be better to go at it with other formats in mind.
Never liked eagle much, but never had much of a use for it as I did everything on stripboard. After going at it with a fixed plan of putting 2 connectors and 50 traces in the smallest area I could get them into it all started to come together well. It's a bit clumsy at times but things like user-contributed scripts and component libraries make it well worth the effort.
One thing I didn't see was a way of integrating SPICE to run simulations. Ktechlab is not always accurate but usefull for checking smoke retention (most of KDE's education related stuff is impressive). Will try and get a grip on geda sometime, it seems very clunky but it's a powerfull app.
cheers
Modly, hirose 0.5mm found it in the component search for me but I have pulled in just about every component library I could find

 

are we still talking about the connector that connects the ribbon cable from the motherboard to the RIM/GPS board? those would surely be surface mount, so no drilling would be needed (or possible). what we need for that is something to help us design an etching mask for the contact pads where the connector would sit on the board.

 

I thought "Quakko"-branded tools were cheap imitation Hakko. A guy was selling that stuff on the video game newsgroup a while back.. I thought the overall opinion was the stuff wasn't the greatest, but not a bad value for the price.

I just inheirited my wife's uncles PACE soldering and desoldering stations, so I'm a happy camper

 

The 50 hirose connector is in a library for eagle, I have no idea which though. For the mask the clearance between the pads is around 0.1mm. There is no way I will be able to engrave that fine and it would be difficult to find someone to etch it so I will miss out the connector next time and put down 50 0.5mm pitch traces at around 0.3mm. Still only 0.2mm wide cuts but it's 100% better than 0.1
cheers

 

Something we could do, is add a spot for the EM-408's header connector on the board. Make it easy incase we wanted to sell bare boards, though it would limit it for the EM-408 only...

In relation to the FM transmitter thread, I'm noticing pins 1 & 3. Audio out and in...

Other than a USB connector, it's the only feasible and good sounding mod for the boards.

 

I'm really liking my Xytronics station. Heats up fast, retains heat well, and hasn't screwed anything up for me yet.

However, it looks like it was designed in 1982... The form leaves me wanting to build my own case for it.

 

Yep, mono out and mono microphone-level in. Not sure about the out level but can hook up to it no prob to check if needed. The mini-pci slots have stereo in-outs that are easy to get at too.

 

Shame it's mono, But with a cheap FM transmitter, I'm not sure if it'll matter.

That's more of a question for my brother.. he actually went to college long enough to get something, and he went for audio work.

 

Stan.
Send me a sketch of what you are thinking for the board and I will make you some .DWG and .DXF files to try. These type files will run through most G-code filters.
The software I use most for what you are doing is MasterCam and this will work directly with your mill. Again if you lived closer I would let you try before you buy.
Good luck and let me know if you need help.

 

Hiya Caddy. Have a plugin for eagle that outputs g-code, works well but I think it may be missing lines sometimes at fine pitch so may take you up on that later.
cheers

 

mastercam is awesome. are you using 9 or X?

 

Not ready to send messages to this miller yet, working on the motor driver at the mo but the smoke keeps getting out of the power transistors... might try sticking to the manufacturers specs or even (shudder..) read the manual.
Will have a look at mastercam when that's up and running though. Had a poke at a mix and match of various apps and happy they will do what I want but something good would be worth spending time getting it to work 100% with wine.