Adapter for Ethernet Plugs

[livinlowe]

Everyone-
I ordered a bunch of ethernet plugs from mouser the other day, and was planning on installing them on a sx28 proto board from parallax. My goal is to play around with the networking article Jon posted in the January Nuts/volts, and I didn't want to pay for a board to get fabbed. But, lo and behold, the plugs have off-center wires that wont mate with the .100" holes on the protoboard.


Soooo, anyone know of an adapter or a way of making this work? (Of course as soon as I saw the problem the little pessimist in my head said - Hey, maybe thats why jon FABBED his boards.) Hopefully, all is not lost

[JonnyMac]

Yep, those dudes have crazy pins, and I've never seen an adapter for them. 

I'm not sure I've mentioned it here, but we're taking that circuit from my article and adding a shift register to it so that we can read a 9-pos DIP switch and will sell it as an add-on module for the Prop-SX (will also work for the Prop-2).  This will allow you to do networking as in my article or DMX control.  I've been working with a big amusement/entertainment company who likes the Prop-SX as a customizable DMX slave device.  So far they're using it to control relays and modulate LED brightness.

I'll be posting some pretty hard-core DMX code for the Prop-SX shortly, things like controlling relays [easy], PWMing LEDs [advanced], controlling servos [advanced].  Of course, the code will be tested so you don't have to modify it -- just program your SX and go.

[livinlowe]

Jon-
Yes, I think you did mention something about them in another thread. It sounds really cool! Are you guys going to be offering those add-ons in the near future? Meanwhile, I'll do some research on a adapter, hopefully I can find or make something.

Thanks

[JonnyMac]

We believe the RS-485 adapter will be ready in March -- want to show it off at Transworld.

[livinlowe]

Wow! That soon? Maybe I'll just wait! Thanks

[JonnyMac]

The nice thing is I had already proved the network side, and that was based on work by my friend Peter (www.socalhalloween.com).  We just added the 74HC165 to minimize the number of pins required for the 9-pos DIP switch (9 positions are needed for DMX-512 use).  I was able to test all the circuitry on a PDB and get the ball rolling.  Being a small company, we can usually move swiftly -- well, most of the time.

We expect to have a lot of fun with this board.  One of the cool things you can do with it is create a large scale controller from two or more smaller ones.  The Prop-SX gives the best performance with the ability to communicate and do other things (like servos, PWM, etc) in the background, but you could use the Prop-2 as well.

[Caretaker.CCI]

Hey Jon:

The more I read in the forum, the more it sounds like I should hop on board with the SX-technology. Especially if I want to control animatronics that have many servos. Is this something I should be considering?

Greg

[JonnyMac]

Yes.  Look at it this way: Parallax uses the SX in most of their BASIC Stamp modules (BS2e, BS2sx, BS2p, BS2pe, BS2px).  The BS1 and BS2 are fantastic machines, but they are single-threaded and this limits their functionality in some applications.  The SX can be a bit more of a challenge to program, but in my mind the effort is worth it.  I've been doing a lot of SX programming of the the last year and will happily share that code with our customers -- we just want all of you to be able to achieve what you want to do.  The nice thing is that Parallax makes a free compiler, called SX/B, that is a lot like PBASIC so what you learn programming the Prop-1 and Prop-2 will help you as you migrate applications to the Prop-SX.

Okay... this thread has drifted off topic (sorry, Shawn; my fault); any more discussion specific to the Prop-SX should be in a new thread in the Prop-SX forum.

[Mike Cook]

If your looking for a breakout board for RJ45 jacks www.sparkfun.com has them. Item #:BOB-00716

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=716

[livinlowe]

Sweeeeeet!
Thanks Mike!

[Ryan C. Payne]

Livinlowe,

What was the part number you ordered from Mouser?

Thanks,

    Ryan

[livinlowe]

It is - 571-5202514.