Connecting to KID PC Mode (No Joy yet)

[ricardo]

Hi folks ..

New owner of a KID and I'm trying to get to the data in PC MODE, and not having any success yet.

My KID has 1860 FW on it (and i'm aware that 1860 has a debug bit enabled in pc mode, but i can't even get the garbaged data out of the KID).

What I've tried so far (scouring the web for little bits of information on how to do this)

- Connected a phone cable to the MASTER plug in the KID.
- Bought a RJ12 to DB9 adapter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016RO1I8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
- Bought a DB9 to USB adapter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IDSM6BW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) prolific chipset

I'm using an old mac mini that runs Linux (Ubunt 16.04) to try to get to the serial data.

I used the pinout from this post by mario (http://midniteftp.com/forum/index.php?topic=2811.msg27154#msg27154)

DB9                        RJ11 ( Master jack in Kid CC)
5_GND          -------- 5_GND
2_RXD-IN      -------- 3_TX-OUT
3_TXD-OUT   -------- 4_RX-IN

used the following settings: Baud 57600, 8N1

-- so far i get zero data .. (i'm leaving out details on accessing a USB serial tty device on linux - but i did that too). -- but basically using minicom to see the data flow through.

Did i miss a something on how this is supposed to be setup. -- any clues on hardware that is known to work (ie: a usb to serial cable that we know works)..  i'm pretty tech savvy but i feel pretty dumb trying to get this working.

any help would be greatly appreciated .. (i live about 30 minutes from Midnite Solar, tempted to drive over and knock on their door and ask for help)

[ClassicCrazy]

I always seem to get wiring mixed up .
Are you positive you have all wiring connections correct -  ohmed out pins on that adapter ?
Did you try swapping 2 and 3 on the DB-9 just in case they were backwards ?

Larry

[ricardo]

I always seem to get wiring mixed up .
Are you positive you have all wiring connections correct -  ohmed out pins on that adapter ?
Did you try swapping 2 and 3 on the DB-9 just in case they were backwards ?

Larry

I tried  swapping 2 and 3 .. i also tried reversing the pin order on the adapter (in case their docs were wrong) .. i tried standard rj12 to db9 configurations (the midnite kid ordering of rj12 is not standard) .. several permutations .. i also found differnent pinouts on the forum so i tried those too .. 

i'm leaning towards there being a problem with either: 1 - the usb->serial chipset .. 2 - the rj12 -> db9 adapter (broken wire?) .. or 3 - using linux on mac for this (unlikely) ..

there is a post somewhere alluding to a problem witht he chipset of the usb -> serial cable that i bought .. so my next step is to buy a different cable (probably a whole different rj12 adapter too) ..  -- if i still fail my last step will be to just hook up an arduino with a breadboard to break out the rj12 wires and debug the signal.. lol ..

[ClassicCrazy]

If you hook it up to the arduino  you need to use rs232 to ttl adapter because of different voltage levels.
Not sure if you saw my post about hooking Classic up to Arduino recently - I spent so many hours trying to get it running . I finally redid the wires - even though I had tried ever single configuration of wiring - I was using a different rs232 to ttl adapter than everyone else  - so I finally got one of those and triple checked all my connectors ( got rid of my adapters and soldered one end right to DB9 ) . It finally worked.
Not sure on the Kid if there is somewhere in settings you have to turn the serial output on ? I have mine out in the shed and haven't played with it for awhile . Maybe I will have a look at it later.

Larry

[ricardo]

I found my error ..

When i hooked up the telephone cable to the KID i grabbed the first RJ11 wire i could find .. unfortunately i grabbed a cable that only had 2 conductors connected in it.. so it would have never worked.

I have now replaced that cable with a RJ11 cable (4 wires, pins 2 through 5) and wired it according to the pinout specified by Mario and i got data!!!

Of course the data us garbage because i'm running 1860 FW so now i just have to wait for a fix to be released.  yay! ..

Since i had to unmount the KID to get this done (why oh why is the KID not front accessible?) - i went ahead and attached a USB cable that i left rolled up and tucked inside the wall mount cover for future use.

[ClassicCrazy]

ha ha - like I mentioned always use the ohm meter to check wiring connections from one end to the other of homemade cables. You would have found that right away . But yeah can't take anything for granted. I spent hours one night wondering why a DB9 cable with molded connectors wouldn't work - till I finally figured out that cable only had 3 wires out of the 9 connected and they were the wrong 3 ! Darn that was frustrating but was happy when I figured it out.

I mentioned in the other thread - why don't you load up the new 1863 firmware where they said they fixed the output problem on the Kid ?

Larry

[ricardo]

I mentioned in the other thread - why don't you load up the new 1863 firmware where they said they fixed the output problem on the Kid ?

Larry

I was pretty happy when i found my error, since i really thought i'd done everything right ..

I would love to load up 1863 .. but i can't find a link to it i think Mario had published a link that was edited since  ..

[vincent]

Hi ricardo,

It works for you now? would you share your nice job to me?

Thanks

Vincent Ma