Controller port to serial cable

[qwertymodo]

I just placed an order for prototype PCB's, should take a month or so to get them. By then, I should have the Samtec -01 samples and some surface-mount IDC headers as well, so I should be able to assemble the prototypes as soon as the boards arrive.

[Near]

Whew, a month lead time on prototype PCBs? o.O

I can wait, but looks like I won't be dumping my US SNES carts any quicker, heh.

Hopefully I can rig up my Samtecs somehow just to start prototyping. The Teensy won't even handle 2.68MB/s bandwidth, but as long as I use one pin of the data bus for now, it should be fine for beating the controller port speeds.

[qwertymodo]

You can get PCB's quicker, but it costs more. I went with batch PCB service since I only wanted 3 for prototypes, which is why it takes so long. If you want one sooner, I can try to etch one myself... I've been meaning to try a 2-layer board for awhile now...

[qwertymodo]

Well... I was bored today, so what the heck.




I don't have any surface-mount IDC pins, but I can at least attest to the fact that continuity is good, so the vias worked... egads, DIY vias suck :S

[qwertymodo]

I got parts in today








I also got a pair of the -01 thickness card sockets, so I'll cut one down tonight and see how it fits compared to the -02 I'm using here.

[Near]

It is a thing of beauty

How are you getting these parts so fast, by the way? My order hasn't even shipped yet >.>

I'm really happy with this, how might I go about placing an order for 100 of the PCBs?
More than I'll need, but what the heck, at 50 cents a piece I don't see why not.
I'd say we should go for red on the color of the board. Like you said, give it a little flair.

Thank you again for putting the time into doing this, I greatly appreciate it. It's going to be a huge help for my dev efforts to have such a fast uplink.

[qwertymodo]

As soon as I get my initial 3 prototype boards back to confirm that I like the placement and board outline/size, I'll send you the gerber files and you can order them here. For 100 boards with red soldermask, you're looking at $0.85/pcb for HASL finish (solder-coated pads) or $1.45/pcb for ENIG (gold-plated pads). I typically prefer ENIG, but I've never done a large run of PCB's where it cost more than $10 or so to get ENIG, so it might not be worth it to you. My parts so far have all been free samples direct from Samtec, so that's how I got them so quickly, but I'm surprised yours are taking THAT long. I'd contact the distributor you purchased from and see if there's some issue holding up your order. I've figured a few things out regarding cutting up the Samtec connectors that should make the process far less annoying than I'd feared, so that's nice too...

[Near]

> As soon as I get my initial 3 prototype boards back

Oh I thought that was your prototype board.

So that's your hand-made one, it looks great assembled!

And yeah at that price, maybe we'll go with 50 for now instead.

[qwertymodo]

> As soon as I get my initial 3 prototype boards back

Oh I thought that was your prototype board.

So that's your hand-made one, it looks great assembled!

Yeah, my bad on the ambiguity. Yes, this was a hand-etched board. The reason I want to wait on the boards I ordered is that they will actually be cut to the size I specified and placed exactly the way the final product will be. Basically, those will show me how the boards actually fit in the case recess, whereas the handmade one is just roughly cut to the size of the part footprints. Once I see how that all works out, then I'll call the design final and ship you the necessary files. If you want to talk logistics and pricing, maybe we should have that discussion in PM, since that's not really relevant to the discussion of the project.

[blargg]

And yeah at that price, maybe we'll go with 50 for now instead.

Any reason for so many? Large fixed overhead when ordering a batch of any size? Given that they're currently just going to be used for research by you and perhaps a few others, it'll be a while until you'd need the rest, and by then, you might have come up with some improvements to the board.

[qwertymodo]

Speaking of improvements, the -01 sockets fit better. The -02's are fine, so don't worry about the ones you already ordered, but the -01 is a much tighter fit. I initially thought it was too narrow, which was why I went with the -02 in the first place, but definitely go with -01 in the future. Other than that, there really isn't anything to improve, as this is just a simple physical adapter, and any devices built to take advantage of it need to be on a separate board due to clearance issues that would manifest if you just tried building a board with the card edge socket directly on it.

[Near]

> Any reason for so many?

I'd like to be able to sell them to people who want to prototype cool stuff to do with the expansion port.

> Speaking of improvements, the -01 sockets fit better.

Okay, cool. Thanks for testing both. I'll just use the -02s for practice surface-mount soldering and dremeling then.

[qwertymodo]

Random bit of progress, but I may have managed to figure out a way to rebuild the cut-off edge of the socket so that it looks nicer/more professional. I'm currently working on adding color to it so it comes out black rather than clear, but the actual process turned out very much to my satisfaction

[Near]

Yay! My six ~2" connectors arrived today ... in this box:



... yeah.

Anyway, man, I have no ability currently to solder to these incredibly tiny surface mount pins o.O
Will have to wait on the PCBs. Hopefully it's easier that way.

Very happy with your refilling side work. I definitely want to get all the same parts you have to reproduce this

[qwertymodo]

Just got this email today