Hello, Arduino Community.
First sorry for my bad english...
I found a way to add an USB port to any 5 volt arduino:
You have to buy a Nokia DKU-5 datacable USB, you can find it on e*ay for only 1 dollar or euro.
It has to be this one:
You only have to cut the PopPort on the Cable and Connect 5v gnd rx tx to your arduino.
Greets tobi31061
EDIT:
Here are the working drivers for the TI Chip:
http://segaemu.bplaced.net/DISK1.rar
Nice find. Thank you.
NP. And i also found a cheap way to connect my calculator to my pc with this cable. ;D
Also works with CA-42 type cables (about the same price. Less than $3 shipped.) There is a nice tutorial here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210308144706/https://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2009/10/04/diy-usb-to-serial-cable-for-3/
The CA-42 seems to be based on the Prolific USB/Serial chip rather than the TI, and the prolific seems to have a larger userbase and be supported on more platforms. (I've yet to find Mac support for either the DKU-5 or other devices containing a TI USB/Serial chip. Sigh.)
I found a way to add an USB port to any 5 volt arduino:
There appears to be a confusing mix of 5V/3V3 versions of these cables (or at least Google suggests this is the case). How did you wire it for 5V Arduino's (pin number/color on DKU-5 connector)?
I've converted a couple CA-42 type cables and they work ok for Rx/Tx and 5V USB bus power (no DTR/RTS for auto-reset however) . This required prying open the USB connector and soldering a wire directlly onto an SMD pin which is tricky. Perhaps your find is eaiser to convert. The prolific chip used in the CA-42 was indeed a 5V tolerant chip and I wonder if this is so for the DKU-5 as well.
Hello everyone
I'm just posting this one message so I'll be allowed to post links and images.
Matt
After reading this thread I picked up a DKU-5 cable from
It has a prolific PL-2303 and a 3 core wire.
orange = GND
blue = RX
red = TX
I've tested it with my 5 volt board and it works fine.
Matt
Very nice to hear that this worked for you, but btw, my multimeter is broken i have problems with checking out the lines....
do somebody now the pins?
it has
brown orange green yellow red
After reading this thread I picked up a DKU-5 cable from
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DKU-5-USB-DATA-CABLE-For-NOKIA-7250-3220-6100-6610-6820_W0...
It has a prolific PL-2303 and a 3 core wire.
orange = GND
blue = RX
red = TXI've tested it with my 5 volt board and it works fine.
Ordered my one from the same place, came in the same box, but has 5 core wire.
Black: GND
Blue: TX
White: RX
Green: VCC
Ps what order should theses be soldered to a 6 pin header?
Im guessing
1: GND
2:
3: VCC
4: TX
5: RX
6:
The "modified" FTDI cable (as used by SparkFun and others) is wired as follows:
1: GND - GND
2:
3: VCC - VCC
4: Pin 2 on MCU (AtMega RXD)
5: Pin 3 on MCU (AtMega TXD)
6: DTR to RESET on MCU
1 is referred to as the "black wire" and 6 as the "green wire" in some references (e.g. on Pro Mini boards).
DTR to RESET on MCU
so..........
A: How do you determine what wire is the RESET on a DKU-5?
B: What are the ramifications of using the 3 core cable with just VCC/TX/RX?
A: How do you determine what wire is the RESET on a DKU-5?
You trace the wire back to the chip and check against the chip's datasheet (or Google for relevant sources). There apperars to be as many variations on this cable however as there are suppliers.
B: What are the ramifications of using the 3 core cable with just VCC/TX/RX?
I doubt you will ever find such a cable. The 3 wire GND/RX/TX however will enable Arduino to USB serial communication, but without auto-reset or power from USB.
B: What are the ramifications of using the 3 core cable with just VCC/TX/RX?
I doubt you will ever find such a cable. The 3 wire GND/RX/TX however will enable Arduino to USB serial communication, but without auto-reset or power from USB.
For people who are too new to remember, no auto-reset means that when attempting to upload a sketch to the arduino, you have to manually push the "RESET" button at nearly the same time you hit the "upload" button. It's not a big deal...
All of the CA-42 cables I've seen seem to be of the 3-wire variety.
Done a little research on the pin out of the Nokia Pop-port, so if anyone is lucky enough to get the 5 wire DKU-5 (like me 
), grab your multimeter, strip the wires to the DKU-5 header, and use the diode setting to find out what colour wire correspond to what header pin.
There's a nice tutorial out there somewhere for the same thing :P.
I doubt you will ever find such a cable. The 3 wire GND/RX/TX however will enable Arduino to USB serial communication, but without auto-reset or power from USB.
I just did the same thing with a CA-42 cable (very similar to DKU-5), and there were only those three wires. I had to run a third down the length of the cable for +5V Vcc, but it works great now :).
@ noob
I find your post confusing. You say you got a 5 wire DKU-5 but then show six lines. Does your cable have VCC, GND, RxD, TxD, DTR (auto-reset) all at the connector with no extra work? If so that's amazing. Usually you have to work a little to get VCC and a lot to get DTR.
@ everybody who has used DKU-5
I was lead to believe by Tim Small's article that the DKU-5 transceiver had to draw power from the phone at 3.3V. Are those you using the DKU-5 having to supply 3.3V to it? Having to supply 3.3V to the cable would complicate things when working with 5V Arduino.
http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Use_a_Nokia_Serial_Cable_on_an_ARM9_Linkstation
I wrote an article on modifying a CA-42 to have VCC, GND, RxD, TxD, DTR (auto-reset). It was first on uChobby. Now it's on my blog and linked to by Hack A Day. Please leave a positive comment if you find this useful.
(I think your CA-42 post that appeared on uChobby was the first I had heard of this source of cheap USB/Serial converters (I think I had known that they WERE such, but had never noticed that they were cheap via the mass-market, or that they used standard-enough chipsets to be useful without special phone software.) I found it useful, and have since bought about half-a-dozen such cables, aimed at all sorts of serial things that I'd like to talk to with USB-equipped computers. (Don't be dismayed by the negative comments on hack-a-day; they seem to be mostly complaining about the long lag between your original posting and HaD picking it up, rather than the idea in general.))
Thank you for your kind comment. I first learned about using an old cell phone cable as a USB to Serial TTL cable about two years ago. I must say that I didn't come up with this idea and its an idea that is much older than my tutorial. However, I would like to say while this information was well known to a certain type of hacker it certainly wasn't well known to the Arduino community or other more casual electronics hobbyists. I feel this is true because I searched the Web high and low for an FTDI alternative for at least a couple nights before I came across a post that gave me a lead on using the CA-42.
The reason I wrote the article was not to dredge up some old hack and try to take credit for it but to popularize it and make getting into Arduino much cheaper thus making it more accessible to a wider group of people. That's the spirit of Arduino and open hardware after all.
I agree that it is very useful, and also agree that you shouldn't listen to the negative comments on Hackaday.
I used your tutorial to create my USB-Serial cable, and I couldn't have done it otherwise. Your guide was very thorough and descriptive, while others were incomplete.
That's very nice of you to say. Thank you.
@ everybody that finds my article useful
Please tell others. Also if you find an error in the article or have a unique experience with hacking your cable please post a comment on my blog.