m00dawg Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Curious as to if anyone has any ideas on a good external connection system that is easy to build while being inexpensive? I was going to use DB9 connections but it turns out that they aren't cheap and I think I'm trading convenience in being able to make cables and things for price. For the curious, this is for connecting GameBoys to my rackmounted ArduinoBoy. I want the connections to be reliable enough for live shows as the connection sends MIDI clock data to the GameBoy to keep it in sync with everything. Connections are on the front for easy access and will need to be tolerant of being connected and disconnected regularly. Seems like DB9 is still the way to go but...man...Mouser is sure proud of them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altitude Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Are you looking to DIY cables/connector recommendations or something more off the self? We use round Conxall ones at work for everything and they are pretty nice. You can get them in a bunch of different sizes and pin counts and they have a nice bayonet action http://www.switchcraft.com/Documents/conxall_catalog.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00dawg Posted July 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 (edited) Ah I was thinking about these a bit. Curious - how goes it with soldering together a cable-side connector? I will have to use existing cable (the other end is a custom adapter I can't easily source by itself). I thought about using DIN connectors but I wanted something a bit further removed from MIDI (to avoid confusion). EDIT: Hmm now that I think of it, I just realized that instead of mounting the baseboard to a rack shelf, I can just mount it behind the control surface board. So now I'm debating on a PCB mount solution for the panel-side connector, likely still on the control surface board (with male/female headers behind it in a sandwhich sort of like sammichSID or the Arduino stuff). Then I can mount the main board using the corner screws of the control surface board. Thing about is that I need connectors on the panel side that aren't too deep (either panel mount or PCB mount). Hmm... Edited July 14, 2012 by m00dawg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altitude Posted July 19, 2012 Report Share Posted July 19, 2012 Its all solder cup. Simple as it gets. I like these since the panel ones are SUPER shallow so they really dont stick out. You can get multi conductor cable for these or just slum it and use some CAT5E round Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00dawg Posted July 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2012 Yeah I may still opt for something else as the DB9's are way more expensive than they should be. But I opted to try the PCB mount options just to see how that goes. The new design avoids cabling between the main board and the control surface board (much like a sammichSID or sammichFM) and that's really nice. The catch is I didn't find much else to use other than a DB9 connection so I'm going to try that first for the prototype and see if that can be improved on. I can't use multi-conductor or CAT5 cabling for the other end because it's part of an existing cable I cut and strip (the other end is a proprietary connector that cannot be easily sourced). But it's about the thickness of a CAT5 so good to know those should work with the Conxall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.