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EF Johnson 242-7184

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Hello everyone, I just picked up two of these radios and want to reprogram them. The only programming cable I can find for them costs $40 which isn't worth it to me, so I want to make my own.

I found this this website which includes a schematic for building a programming cable. It seems fairly easy, but I need some help figuring it out as there are a few areas I don't quite understand.

Here's the schematic in question:
vzladGb.gif


Here's what I need to know:
The guy at the website I linked to used 2 50V,.01uF, Ceramic Disc Caps but I don't see those in the schematic anywhere. He says to use a +5.0V 1.0A TO-220 Voltage Regulator so you can use a 12v power supply, is that where the disc caps come into play? If so, how do I hook them up?

Also, where does everything need to be grounded to? The power supply ground?

Thanks for any help.
 

WX9EMS

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To answer your question, yes, he is using the disc capacitors with the power supply. I built a few programming interfaces around the MAX232 and I have never used any disc capacitors with the 7805 voltage regulator. I usually use a 1 µF 25V or a 10 µF 25V electrolytic capacitor with the 7805, it depends what I have on hand at the moment.

I can't say that my design is any better, but I know my design works every time without any issues.

Your ground will be a network between the pin 5 of the DB-9 and the ground pins of the radio. All ground connections will ground through this net.

Good luck!
 
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Thanks for the help!

I should be headed in the right direction now. If you have a way of providing 5v can you just skip the voltage regulator all together and feed right in from your power supply or will that cause problems?
 

mancow

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I wouldn't skip the regulator.

If you use a MAX233 you don't need the capacitors at all.
 
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WX9EMS

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You can get away without the 7805 regulator as long as your voltage stays below 5.5v.

You can use the Max233, if you have the extra space (it is a 20 pin DIP vs .the Max232 is a 16 DIP) and the cost is usually twice that of a Max 232, but it does have its upside, the designing and PCB building process is much more simplistic with the Max233 when real-estate isn't an issue.
 
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So basically if I use the Max233 I won't have to use any capacitors, just make my connections to the power source, radio, and DB9?

I may go that route just to keep it simple.

Thanks for the help!
 
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Now that I finally have time to get back to work on this I came across a few things while I was getting ready to order parts.

I found this while looking around and I'm wondering if I can just use it instead of assembling my own. Not that I'm opposed to assembling my own but this would save some time soldering and doesn't cost too much.

Am I missing something or would I just be able to buy this and then hook up my 5v, TX, RX, and GND to it and be good to go?
 
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Went ahead and bought the TTL converter I linked to and it worked fine. I still had to use a 7805 regulator for 5v and I set that up on another board.

Was able to program both radios with no problems.

Thanks again for the help.
 
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