Diy Serial Cable Help?

[Napthali]

I'm looking to make a cable that would let my 5500 connect to a SparkFun Tri-Axis accelerometer.

Information on the accelerometer can be had here: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_i...products_id=248

I know that the Zaurus doesn't provide enough power over the serial connection, but I think there are solutions to it (either running some of the serial wires to a power source or directly powering the board).

The wiki page on making your own serial cable looks a tad old, and the section on using the Zaurus as a DTE remains unverified. I'm not too experienced with crafting my own serial cables, so any advice that people have would be appreciated. I currently have in my possession:

Two (2) Zaurus PDA serial port connectors
One (1) Serial cable I am willing to tear up
A soldering iron
Time and inclination :-)

Does anybody have any advice on the best way to go about doing this? What color cables go to what pins? Forgive me if these are newbie questions.

[Ferret-Simpson]

Can you unscrew the serial cable or is it moulded?

I'm going to assume you're american and that I therefore can't give you a link to a seller of D-Plugs.

If I were you, I'd buy a new D-Plug and use that instead of rescuing the old one from the Serial cable.

If you've got a multimeter handy then you can find out what pin on the serial plug is linked to each connector and rescue the old plug that way, and a minute or so of google searching will get you the Zaurus Pinout.

Fancy making me a Serial Terminal cable while you're at it?

Well on a more serious note, if you know anywhere which can still get the connectors that would be good, It's pretty much impossible to get zThins over here, and that wouldn't help me with the old UNIX boxes I want to use my Z as a serial terminal for, since none of them have a normal Serial port.

[Napthali]

Can you unscrew the serial cable or is it moulded?

It's moulded, but I've lopped off the other end of it and pulled apart the individual cables.

I'm going to assume you're american and that I therefore can't give you a link to a seller of D-Plugs.

If I were you, I'd buy a new D-Plug and use that instead of rescuing the old one from the Serial cable.

Forgive my ignorance -- is a d-plug a 25-pin adapter? That's what my googling showed up. How would that help me?

If you've got a multimeter handy then you can find out what pin on the serial plug is linked to each connector and rescue the old plug that way, and a minute or so of google searching will get you the Zaurus Pinout.

Yep, I've got one and am currently in the process of doing that. The trick is that I know nothing about serial hardware, and even with the pinout don't know how I'm supposed to connect the cables. Is it one-to-one, are some wires supposed to be flipped, etc. There's a pinout on the wiki (here), but the diagram for connecting the Zaurus to a device has a disclaimer that it may not be correct. I doubt I'm the first one to attempt such a thing, so any guidance I can get from others who have tried it would be helpful.

Fancy making me a Serial Terminal cable while you're at it?

 I'm not sure if you'd want the results of my work... I'm very much an amateur at this sort of thing.

Well on a more serious note, if you know anywhere which can still get the connectors that would be good, It's pretty much impossible to get zThins over here, and that wouldn't help me with the old UNIX boxes I want to use my Z as a serial terminal for, since none of them have a normal Serial port.

I got mine from FiveStar Associates, which seem to make a good product for a reasonable price. So far the connectors are sitting on my shelf unused while I figure out the pinout and wiring plan.

Thanks for the advice! Let me know if you have any further thoughts...

[Ferret-Simpson]

The second pinout LOOKS correct. (Basically, a Null Modem cable has all the Transmit and Recieve pins swapped, so the Serial port on each machine trasmits to the recieve pins on the other.)

a D-Plug is just the 9 pin connector for the other end. (D, because it's D-shaped. Duh!) There are all sorts of variants, in both Male and female, including High-Density (Like a monitor cable, with three rows not two.)

www.rapidonline.co.uk is a British seller that does them, and will show you the difference between M and F so you get the right one. They're usually pin-marked so you get the right ones. ^^

Thanks for the links! XD That's exactly what I needed.

[hvontres]

The second pinout LOOKS correct. (Basically, a Null Modem cable has all the Transmit and Recieve pins swapped, so the Serial port on each machine trasmits to the recieve pins on the other.)

a D-Plug is just the 9 pin connector for the other end. (D, because it's D-shaped. Duh!) There are all sorts of variants, in both Male and female, including High-Density (Like a monitor cable, with three rows not two.)

www.rapidonline.co.uk is a British seller that does them, and will show you the difference between M and F so you get the right one. They're usually pin-marked so you get the right ones. ^^

Thanks for the links! XD That's exactly what I needed.
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Also, check out this page: [a href=\"http://www.pdaxrom.org/node/92]PDAXrom Serial Board[/url]

It has a 3.3V inverter and a rs232 level shifter. The inverter is needed since the signals from the Z are already inverted and most rs232 shifters expect ttl (non inverted) signals.