Could we build our own USB -> TTL cables using...

[Pete is Colorbroken]

THIS? http://www.mdfly.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=44

I'm not opposed to helping Makerbot Industries or anything like that,
but if I can manage to save $12 on a cable I could rig myself, I'd
like to. Hell, that's the point of the whole machine. I'm hard-
pressed to believe there's really something magical about a USB to TTL
cable that makes it cost $20 from every source online. So what do you
think? Could I order one of these little jobbers and run my own
wiring for it and have it magically work? I have 7 billion pounds of
spare parts and wires and things around, I can make this work.

Side question, unrelated -- can someone confirm that Kapton tape does
in fact ship in the Basic Cupcake kit?

Thanks a million, I love all of you.

[Nick Burrows]

That would work, all you need to do is wire the RX/TX and GND up correctly.

I got kapton tape in my kit, its still a vital component of making the extruder heater.

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[Andrew Plumb]

It'll probably work as long as the only platform you want to use it on is (probably) Windows. Hard to say with that RAR-encoded file they provide and without schematics.

What's "magical" about the USB2TTL cables and boards most folks carry is that they are based on FTDI chips. Drivers are available for Mac, Linux and Windows and their limitations are reasonably well understood.

Pick your poison. ;-)

Andrew.

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"The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed" -- William Gibson

Me: http://clothbot.com/wiki/

[Cathal Garvey]

Worst that'll happen is you spend another $20c if it doesn't work out, while adding knowledge and diversity to fab-culture. Go for it! :)

On Mar 30, 2010 10:39 AM, "Andrew Plumb" <and...@plumb.org> wrote:

It'll probably work as long as the only platform you want to use it on is (probably) Windows.  Hard to say with that RAR-encoded file they provide and without schematics.

What's "magical" about the USB2TTL cables and boards most folks carry is that they are based on FTDI chips.  Drivers are available for Mac, Linux and Windows and their limitations are reasonably well understood.

Pick your poison. ;-)

Andrew.

On 2010-03-30, at 1:02 AM, Pete is Colorbroken wrote: > THIS? http://www.mdfly.com/index.php?mai...

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"The future is already here.  It's just not very evenly distributed" -- William Gibson

Me: http://clothbot.com/wiki/

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[RustySpoon]

You could try this. If your as cheap as me :)
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2009/10/04/diy-usb-to-serial-cable-for-3/

[Ethan Dicks]

On 3/30/10, RustySpoon <rustysp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You could try this. If your as cheap as me :)
> http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2009/10/04/diy-usb-to-serial-cable-for-3/

That's a really handy link! I have been looking for something like
that for some other Arduino-y projects - I'd personally rather have
TTL levels than 3.3v levels, but for the cost (under $5, shipped), I
might just get a couple to hack around with.

$20 each is, to me, not a disposable price - I'd be inclined to keep
the cable with the host. $5 each, OTOH, is cheap enough to have one
cable per project. Yes, I understand that I can't just unpackage the
Nokia cable and plug it in and that my time is worth "something", but
the savings to me comes not from doing it once for one Makerbot but
from embedding a hacked Nokia cable in project after project.

Thanks for the tip!

-ethan

[Pete is Colorbroken]

Ordered the part, I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

[Ethan Dicks]

On 4/1/10, Pete is Colorbroken <peter...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ordered the part, I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

I ordered a few CA-42s myself. I'll report back with my findings as well.

-ethan

[Sergio Alvarez]

Hi, I do the same with Nokia cable DKU5 and it works well.
The dificult part es find the drivers, In my case I found and download the driver from http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31

Sergio

2010/4/1 Ethan Dicks <ethan...@gmail.com>

--

[Ethan Dicks]

My $3.50 CA-42s arrived much earlier than expected. Plugging one into
a Linux box (CentOS 5.3) gives...

usbcore: registered new driver usbserial
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic
usbcore: registered new driver usbserial_generic
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core
drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
pl2303 6-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
usb 6-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
usbcore: registered new driver pl2303
drivers/usb/serial/pl2303.c: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver

... so I anticipate no issues. ISTR the CA-42 uses 3.3V signal
levels, but that should work fine with a Sanguino (but I wouldn't be
able to program the Extruder controller unless I power it
independently of the cable).

-ethan

[Ethan Dicks]

On 4/2/10, Ethan Dicks <ethan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My $3.50 CA-42s arrived much earlier than expected. Plugging one into
> a Linux box (CentOS 5.3) gives...

Tearing one apart, the cable has three wires, but the insides are
nothing like the ones on the previously mentioned webpages. This is a
seriously-cost-reduced part. The chip is directly mounted to the PCB
and covered in an epoxy bubble - quite common on cheap parts.
Fortunately, the PCB also has a full description of the signals. They
are:

GND, RxD, TxD (all used), CTS, RTS, 5V, DTR, RI, DCD, and DSR (all
blank). There's a couple of solder blobs connecting features, marked
S1 and S2. There's also four component spots blank, Q1 (SOT-23), R2,
R3, and R4 (604 sized, it appears).

This part looks good for basic comms with no hacking (just a new
connector for the Makerbot), or for programming with the cable
upgraded to 6 pins. Unfortunately, the packaging is a blue molded
soft plastic, not a polystyrene 2-part clamshell, but it might not be
too hard to print a replacement housing after destroying the original.

Thanks for the original suggestion for the CA-42 - I have a number of
Arduino and serial LCD projects that need something like this, and it
should be good for a Makerbot, too.

-ethan

[Jonathan]

We used a bus pirate - not exactly cheap, but useful if you have one
already.

- Jonathan

On Apr 3, 7:10 pm, Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Pete is Colorbroken]

UPDATE: The answer is, yeah it kinda works. I've been able to
successfully run the extruder using only GND, TXD and RXD without much
trouble. I used a length of cable from an old hand-held scanner, I
think, and yanked some interface plugs out of an old monitor of all
things. Since I cooked my stepper drivers and god knows what else, I
can't confirm overall that it's 100% functional, but for $11.40
shipped, I like this a little better than $20+S/H. Plus it looks more
ridiculous. But the good news is I should be able to feed a job off
of my netbook with a spare extension cable, soooo... I'm happy, you're
happy, MDFly is happy. Thanks for the help, Nick Burrows -- now I'm
definitely learning things.

pete