cf-28 minipci options

my understanding from a few other threads is that there is success with putting minipci wireless cards into cf-28

i'd really be interested to know what else would go in there.
(and of course any minipci equiped device)

usb2 would also be handy (yeah would require some cutting to put a port), bluetooth would also be nice.

has anyone come across any interesting minipci cards, most interesting would be multifunction cards

http://www.tri-m.com/products/peripheral.html
shows reference to some cards with nice looking features

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=MP54GBT2
shows the only 'combo' i can find but that appears to be for MSI laptops exclusively (googled and cant find anywhere a reason to doubt this claim)

 

I think Toughbook looked in that MSI card and did find that we cant use it.

 

I never tried the MSI card but from what I've read you can't use it.

Most of the mini pci cards are wifi cards. I'd be interested to see if you dig up anything other than that.

 

it seems there isnt much out there, which really suprises me
gonna keep looking though
ah well, i'm going to have a tinker round and see what the options are for cutting down pcmcia cards to make them fit and close the door like you have with BT.
the dream is wifi and or BT in the pci (easy if i can find the card)and usb2 or BT in the pcmcia

 

The wifi pci is easy as is routing the antenna cable. (Depending on how you mount it.) The BT is just as easy if you find the right one. I have a Billionton card that fits with just a little modification. I just won the bid on a 3Com card that looks like it will fit also.

Now I just need to get my GPS WORKING!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

 

toughbook..........is that the 3com card i said,
if it is you'll have no problem what so ever, 3com were the company supplying BT for the cf-28 when there came built in with them.,.

 

I'm not sure if it is the same one we talked about... It has the antenna that can go all the way in... Then pop out when you need it! Seems nobody makes them any more... So you have to find an older one.

 

from what you describe it is the one i sent you the link saying you should bid on it????
how much did you get it for????
i think the other one ended for 20usd.....

 

I bought it for too much money! It was like $35USD + Shipping. Should be here any day. They seller lived in Ohio and they've been flooded out.

 

oh dear but for that money it should come fully boxed the other one just had manual,cd and card......
anyway its a great card and should work just fine...........

 

On ebay it looks like there are two types of Billionton BT PCMCIA cards. One has a little "bump" antenna, much like a common WiFi card but smaller, and another model that has a small swivel antenna. which did you use? You were able to shoehorn it into the hidden PCMCIA slot, right? The Billionton website only shows the swivel antenna type, so maybe the bump was discontinued. Didn't look like it would pull in much of a signal, anyway.

 

I can't find the Billionton one that I found that one time. It has an antenna that retracted into the card.

I've been using the 3Com PCMCIA cards with the X-jack. It fits and the door closes with the card inserted... If you can find them. They snap them up on ebay whenever you see them. The 3Com doesn;t work as well as the Billionton but it is BT... I was going to try the one with the swivel antenna just to see if I could make it work. I think I want to try the MSI mini pci wifi/bt card... Someone has to try this and it might as well be me. (Right?)

 

Yeah, that MSI card looks interesting. I wonder how (or why) they would limit it to only MSI notebooks like the warning says. What was the best price you found for it? I saw it for $44 here:

http://www.etech4sale.com/MSI_MP54GBT2_6885_Combo_Mini_PCI/MP54GBT2_6885/partinfo-id-143734.html

which didn't seem too bad

 

At present I am experimenting with 400mW wifi cards. The first tests look VERY promising... Not too much of a hit on battery life and a HUGE increase in signal. I bought one from a supplier that only had a few left of their close-outs... That's the only problem. I'll have to look for codes to trace who the manufacurer was/is.

 

look guys about the msi card,
dont waste ur money on it, the power from the wifi is very very poor and so is the bluetooth,
also this problem was from using in msi laptops and a hp laptop so as you know it be even worst in a toughbook..............

 

I'm surprised that nobody has done an internal usb2 mod. I'm in the process of modding an ibm pcmcia 2.0 adapter to go in the internal slot. Next I'll do one with firewire & 2.0. Plenty of places to mount the jacks. The link you provided had a mini pci 2.0 card though...

 

There is alot involved in doing that. I'd love to have USB 2.0 on my toughbook (So I can charge my iPod or otherwise use it on my laptop).

I wish this was like my old Mac, with expansion slots everywhere... I suppose we should all count ourselves lucky we even have the internal PCMCIA.

 

I am mulling the purchase of a high-power cwrd. (figured i might as well do it right if i'm doing it!) but in the networking forum people have cautioned me that the pci port may not be able to product enough power. any ideas as to the max power available?

 

Well, I'm gonna try out a card that runs up to 400mw. It's not certified for laptop use, but some people have gotten them to work.

I'm also now ripping apart the whole damn thing to run a GPS antenna up in the LCD rim. This will be hard as hell though. I'm trying to figure out the best place to mount the antenna in, because it has a board underneath it that is seeming to love touching my LCD.

 

are you going to use the place where the RIM antenna goes? seems like there's a fair amount of room in that corner

 

I'm considering it. The antenna contains a small board that extends about 2.5cm below the mounting surface, so that seems to be my only real avenue.

 

I thought guys were using the RIM antenna for the wireless nic - did that mod not work out?

 

David... The RIM antenna is really not the best wifi antenna. I've tried... It works... But not as well as the 7db antenna on the side!

By the way... I scored a first for me the other day... I bought a CF-28 that had an actual stock Panasonic wifi antenna. It looks pretty much the same as the RIM but is the correct length. I haven't tried to hook it up yet... I was thinking about maybe putting it up on ebay.

 

wait a minute, you're talking about a factory wifi installation that has an antenna in the lid? i thought the factory setup used a "bump" on the modem/LAN side!

 

Gravitar... I think you are confusing the GPS with the Wifi... GPS has the bump on the side... Wifi had the antenna. Or was there another variant I haven't seen yet? (I know I haven't seen them all yet!)

 

Here is a top view where the side wifi antenna is;

 

Okay... I have seen those... Still... with the power of old and lack of external antenna... I'd bank on a side mount any day!

 

Has anyone put a SWR meter on the RIM antenna to measure its impedance at
the required frequency resonance?

Does anyone know the expected values of the card that was tested into the RIM
antenna?

Perhaps there was a mismatch?

Unless there is massive loss in the the coax from the card to the antenna or an
impedance mismatch the larger external antenna should outperform the smaller
edge antenna all day long.

 

From what I have read... There is an impedance mismatch with the RIM antenna. I don't have an SWR meter but have read that, if you stay with a 100mw card (Or less) then you can use the RIM antenna.

Read this guy's post... This is where I originally got the idea of using the RIM antenna....
(From, "The Inane Ramblings of Tim [Blog])

Hacking the Toughbook.
I have found a way to hack in better wifi in the toughbook. First if your has the cellular RIM modem and are not interested in 9600baud dial up speeds at $90.00 a month but would like full wifi speeds and take advantage of that nifty antenna, then read on.

First the toughbook is hard to add wifi into, there are plenty of mini-pci slots, but the thing is made out of metal with metal covers, not the best for 2.4ghz wireless. The left hand blank cover just like the Ethernet jack on the right hand side IS plastic and is accessible if you remove the battery. This is where I mounted the first wifi antenna. I bought a dell antenna kit off of eBay for $6.99 which gave me a pair of internal antennas. I used one in the above location, the second one is going to use the laptops pull up antenna. Here is how this stuff works. That antenna is designed for 1.2ghz so it is 2 times longer than it needs to be. Fortunately wifi cards are incredibly uncaring about their impedance match. So we are going to use it as-is. I cut the end off the cellphone antanna cable at the module in the battery bay. I carefully stripped an inch off the outside and very carefully folded and slipped back the shield to expose 7/8th of the center conductor. now strip that leaving 1/4 inch to the braid. now cut a 6 inch long piece of the new antenna kit wire so we have that silly little u.fl connector strip that one the same. clip the center conductors to be 1/8th of an inch and solder them together do this fast with a low wattage iron we cant be melting the insulation. after the center is joined, hit it with a car touch up paint or fingernail plish or other laquer paint and let it dry, while this is going on, get a small strip of black tape and apply it around that painted bare wire for a little bit more insulation and filler. now simply slide the larger wires braided shield over the whole connection and siolder it to the smaller wires shield, heatshrink or tape the ground and now fish the wires under the case near the board to get to the hard drive side and your wifi card. I use a 100mw Atheros card, you can use anything else except the engenius 400mw card. at that power I think the mismatch on the entenna will harm the card.

There you go, that fly laptop with the stylin' antenna is actually functional, unlike a honda civic with a monster wing on the back.

 

Such an antenna mismatch is likely easily resolved at that frequency with one loop of
the coax or a tiny capacitor.

I will consult with a friend, and perhaps an Amateur Radio discussion list and see what
I may discover and report back.

Are there instructions, preferably with pictures, for gaining access to the antenna and
coax? I'd prefer to spend time solving the problem than reinventing the access tricks!

 

So far the only suggestion I have received is to try the RIM antenna at 50% length
extended - the portion below the surface appears to be shorted to ground.

That would make it a resonant 1/4 antenna at 2.4GHz.

I do not have anything that can test resonance at 1.2 or 2.4GHz so I cannot look at
the antenna electronically. I will ask a local broadcast engineer/Ham if he can do that
for me.

 

You can't pull it half way out. The base needs to make contact with the metal top to complete the circuit.

To gain access to the antenna is easy... To get at the rest of the wiring is considerably more difficult. It requires taking the whole laptop apart.

The lead from the antenna is taped to the back of the top, If you get my drift. It leads down the back to where the brass connector hits the docking connector. It is soldered to a board in the back there and then leads to the cell module. I supposed you could splice the connector with a U.fl connector and try that. With the one that I did, I soldered the lead in place of the other cable, pulling out the old and soldering in the new. I figured that woud be better than splicing. In actuality... It would probably be about the same.

There's only one way to find out... Give it a shot!

 

Are there any pictures, like the DVD-replacement project, posted anywhere?
The DVD project worked really well!

Another possibility would be to replace the antenna with an antenna connector - then one could
attach the appropriate antenna for the task (wireless, GPS, etc). One could even attach a high
gain handheld/table-top, mobile, or base antenna.

WDYT?

 

You know.. you reminded me. One of my wife's uncles is a senior broadcast engineer for one of the TV networks. This would probably be child's play for him!

 

Sounds like an exciting possibility!

He may be able to advise us if modifying the antenna (I believe that the plastic top may be removed and the
antenna rod shortened), adding some sort of tiny loading matching circuit (compensate for a 1/2 wave vs
1/4 wave antenna), or replacing the antenna with a waterproof connector is a best choice.

He may also be able to look at the cabling and recommend the most efficient way to get the signal from
the antenna or connector to the WiFi and/or GPS mini-card.

 

I'll see what he says. the way I was planning on going with mine was not shorter, but LONGER.. The radio-modem antenna that was used with the CF-27 is about twice as long as the one on the 28, and looks like it was manufactured to the same dimensions. The problem I've run into is, while I was able to unscrew the antenna assembly from my 28 with a couple of flatblade screwdrivers(I might have just got lucky), The one on the 27 won't budge. I wonder if there was a special spanner wrench for removing those?

It does seem like we should be able to make a simple impedance-matching circuit for our antennas, doesn't it?

 

It would seem so - and I would not hesitate to do so at 7MHz or 50MHz but 2.4GHz is "above my pay grade".

 

Ok, I now have an antenna that is 7 1/2" long from a scrap 27 in addition to the stock 2 3/4" RIM antenna. Turns out that the 27 antenna was just screwed in REAL good. I had to break apart the plastic molded around it so I could grip it with a pliers.

I wish I had a cheap-o wifi card rigged up to the RIM modem cabling so I could evaluate the relative performance of each! I'll have to come up with a way to test it. I've got a Cisco 350 card but I would hate to ruin it if it turns out that impedance mismatch matters!