"PX" said:
Hello ben pope,
Thanks for your answer, but I already have the original manual ! My problem
is with the ieee1394 connector, provided with the coolermaster case. It has
the same connector on both sides, a fw socket, and I need to cut/solder this
cable to get ieee1394 connected on the upper panel.
That's the scheme I'm looking for.
The two Wavemaster cases on the website have the same picture showing what
the pinout is on the board. The picture shows the adapter on the front
of the case, having a six pin Firewire connector on one side and a 2x5
header on the other side. A six wire cable with braid shield is used to
connect from the 2x5 header on the case to the motherboard. The Coolermaster
end has the following wiring shown on the web page:
TPA- Orange Pin10 Pin 9 Blue TPA+
GND Black Pin 8 Pin 7 (Braid) GND
TPB- Pink Pin 6 Pin 5 Green TPB+
+12V White Pin 4 Pin 3 White +12V
GND (No wire) Pin 2 Pin 1 Key (plugged to prevent reversal)
The A7N8X manual shows a 1x8 header with the following pins. I don't see
any keying, so you'll have to look at the picture in the manual to figure
out which pin is pin 1.
GND
GND
TPA2+
TPA2-
TPB2+
TPB2-
GND
+12V
You can buy an empty plastic housing, then remove the separate pins from
the 2x5 connector housing and place them into the frontx 1x8 housing. This
will neatly insulate the pins and keep them in place. Due to variations
in different brands of pins and shapes of plastic housings, I cannot
guarantee that this housing will work with your pins (it should be close).
http://www.frontx.com/cpx075_7.html
Generally, to remove a pin from a 2xN housing, there will be a plastic
tab that catches in the body of the connector pin. With a hobby (Xacto)
knife, I take the tip and pry at the plastic tab, so that the wire and
pin can be pulled back out of the housing.
An alternative is to pull the pins out of the 2x5 housing, and then
insulate the outside of them with heatshrink (polyolefin) tubing. You
could then connect the wires/pins individually to the motherboard, with
the tubing insulating the pins from one another. This is a nuisance when
removing/replacing the motherboard.
GND Black wire (GND)
GND Braided wire (GND)
TPA2+ Blue (TPA+)
TPA2- Orange (TPA-)
TPB2+ Green (TPB+)
TPB2- Pink (TPB-)
GND
+12V One of the White wires. Tape and insulate the other White pin!
Notes:
1) The +12V pin can be asked to handle 1 amp of current or more. Using
two pins and wires for this would be a better practice than just one
pin. Make sure the single +12V pin is "square" to the pin and well
seated.
2) Inside the cables, you should find TPA+ and TPA- twisted together.
Similarly, TPB+ and TPB- are twisted together. The twisting of the
wires should be maintained as close as possible to the connector pins,
as the twisted wires have an impedance that matches the rest of the
transmission path. What this means is, you cannot just wire two pieces
of loose wire to take their place - the signals are at 400Mbits/sec
and must be in a transmission line quality electrical environment.
Before doing the wiring, you might also want to use a meter, and touch
the Firewire connector pins on the front of the case, and see whether
the colored wire inside the case is properly wired. (On my Antec case,
I found TPA+/- switched with one another and TPB+/- switched with one
another. That is why I recommend buzzing it out with an ohmmeter.)
Some other experiences I can relate to you with Firewire, is with regard
to cable power. The computer makes +12V available via the six pin Firewire
connector. If you connect a camera with a four pin connector and a 6 to
4 conversion cable (the camera having its own source of power), there
shouldn't be a problem. I have a disk enclosure (ADS Pyro ADI-800 and
I think the DLX185 dual link USB/Firewire is the same way), and the
disk enclosure has its own power supply inside. With the ADS enclosure
(and probably other brands with their own power), you want to turn on
the enclosure BEFORE turning on the computer. Similarly, at the end of
the day, shutdown the computer and then turn off power on the back of
the enclosure. It seems the ADS product bridge board tries to draw
current from the Firewire cable when the enclosure power is turned off,
and judging by the half-lit status LED on the front of the case, the
bridge board is under some stress while doing this. For longest life,
I recommend external enclosures be power up first and down last.
The best solution to powering problems like this, might be to not connect
either white wire to the motherboard. This will prevent six pin, cable
powered Firewire devices from working (like an Ipod?), but it also
might avoid burning out an interface with problems like the ADS one.
Another area of concern is grounding. Due to the varied and incorrect
grounding practices in Firewire devices, I recommend that all
Firewire appliances be powered from the same extension cord/power strip.
This keeps all the computers/appliances at the same ground potential
and avoids the possibility of ground loop currents flowing in the braid
of the cable. The cable braid is supposed to be AC grounded (no DC path)
and the VP/VG power is supposed to be floating, and no computer/motherboard
I've heard of yet meets these requirements.
HTH,
Paul
