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Old 19-09-2011, 04:06 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Sydney
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The other thing you need is a multi-meter. Once you've crimpted your ends - check their resistance. If it isn't right (way too high) - your fancy cable won't give you any joy!

I like two other pieces of gear too - the first is a serial to parallel overcharge (earthed) connector and the second is a breakout box.

You use the first if your gear is set up in regions where you might get near lightning strikes or big current spikes. Service stations often use them between the petrol pumps and cash registers - they cost around $40.

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/...e&tab=features

A breakout box is very handy if any of your gear requires non standard cabling. For example my SS2K doesn't support ST4 auto guiding pin outs. So I wire a normal 6 pin cable for its full length per ST4 design and plug it into a breaout box. The breakout box *around $8) allows me to rewite cables any way I like simply, then I connect a normal 6 pin cable from the breakout box to the hand controller.

As a last hint - if you ever have to wire anything - up to 8 wires - where you need a lonng, tough yet flexible cable - simply use old network cable. CAT 5 (blu network cable) is amazingly resilent. Simply cut each end off and re-connect it to the cable connectors you require at each end. Dirt cheap and super resilent.

Oh another hint - many modern motherboards do in fact have a COM1 (or 2) port on the motherboard itself - if not the backpane. You simply need a IDC 10 to DB9 connector to present a standard serial connector on the back of your PC. An PC shop may have one of these in their dis-used parts bin, else buy them from the US for around $2 e.g.

http://www.amazon.com/Male-Motherboa.../dp/B000JC31L4
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