7 Oct
2007
7 Oct
'07
10:46 a.m.
> > >
I'd *still* like to someday get my hands on one of the fancier
> > > breakout boxes I used to see in catalogs... :-)
> >
> > How fancy is fancy?
>
> Not too terribly, considering I can't in any way justify spending mu=
ch
> if any money on such a thing. The ability
to interrupt any of the pi=
ns,=20
maybe do
cross-connecting, and LED indicators would be nice.
Err, isn't that what all breakout boxes so, even the simple ones. Every one I own (and I think I have 5 so far,
maybe more) has switches =
to
open-circuit each of the lines, sockets/ pins and
jumper leads to
cross-connect. Some of them monitor all 25 (or maybe 24, often Protecti=
ve
Ground is omitted) of the lines on LEDs, others
monitor only the
cmmonly-used lines, but have some 'spare' indiocators you can patch to
any line.
About the only thing I've accumulated so far is a double-ended adapter th=
at=20
has seven LEDs in it, which has already proved useful enough to have=20 justified its fairly reasonable cost. No patching in
that one, just the=
=20
indicators, but it comes in handy sometimes anyway.
How does one accumulate _five_ of those things? :-)
I can rememebr what 4 are :-)
1) An old RS23 breakout box. Real slide-switches to open all the wires,
and 2mm sockets for cross-patching. The main signals are monitored by
transistor-driven filament lamps, the whole thing is mains-powered,, said
PSU also prvides +12V and -=12V outputs for forcing handshake signals
2) A cheap (well, cheaply made) modern breakout ox. DIP swithcs to
interrupt the signals, turned-pin IC-socket pins for cross-patching, into
whcih you stich the bare ends of wires. Monitor LEDs for _all_ pins,
powered from the RS232 signals
3) A Neavtel Supertest. Runs off rechargeable batteries, DIP switches to
open the signals and pins (with socket-ended jumers) for cross-patching.
Does things like Bit Error Rate Tests. Monitors only the commonly-used
signals/
4) A Ferret. The breakout box part is DIP-switches and pins as in (3).
Monitors all suignals on RS232-powered LEDs. Also does things like
current loop/parallel conversions, printing, EPROM programming, etc.
Mains powered, of course.
-tony