Hello,
I am new to all of this.
I would like to make a digital version of this cable. the 5-in-1 network admin's cable (ossmann.com)
I carry this and a usb serial cable in my pack to deal with customers old hardware.
I was thinking creating a "box" with a button and leds to select which type of serial connection you need, modem cable, Null modem cable, or Cisco console cable
I would like to have one end of the box be usb that plugs into the computer and gets power to the arduino and shows up as a serial port so i could use it in putty. The other end would be the db9 serial connection.
Is this doable?
I know there are other solutions to this problem. I am trying to get into the arduino world and thought this would be an interesting project.
The OP just said they are dealing with old hardware. In industry, 20 years is not particularly old. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
If I understand OP correctly: they want ONE physical connector, and then electronically select which protocol and pinout to use.
That should be possible. All the data lines of the DB9 connector go to the Arduino (mind voltage levels), then the Arduino can read the various protocols. May need to be bitbanged but with the Arduino not doing anything else this sounds doable.
Harder will be if you need to include current based protocols like RS485 as well. I don't immediately see how those could be made compatible with the other signals and connections.
That is exactly what I want in physical form. I was hoping to make it so I could just push a button to select the type. I wanted to make it easy for my co workers that aren't in their 40 to use it! any ideas?
Sorry. Nothing on the market will be exactly what you need.
I made my own "adaptopus" that mated physically different devices to the BOB (I needed the DIP switches, crossover connections, and the state LEDs), with an occasional "adapter for the adaptopus". The stubs all had a common connector (DB25 for the BOB) and a specific connector pair of male/female (RJ45, MJ11, DB9, DB25, DB37, 2/3/4/5/6/8/20, loopback, et c.). Make one along with a drawing... the youngsters (45 and under) will see the benefit of having their own "xpus."
The math of connecting switches and wires to more wires and switches is: (number of wires ^ number of wires) so the box to hold the wires gets huge very quickly... that's why I went with the bundle of dummies.
Make an number of cabes for exactly one purpose , add a good visible description on the cable and don't allow the users to choose. User choice == ask for desaster
You know that a cisco RJ45->DB9 adaptor can switch from DTE to DCE by using a "flipped" vs "non-flipped" RJ45 flat cable, right? So two cables and two genders of DB9 adaptor handles almost all of those cases...
But... DB9s are relatively standard compared to DB25, so a lot of the need for "many" adaptors went away (20 years ago.)
An electronic solution probably isn't that useful unless it auto-detects. Which I guess is possible, but not many chips have serial ports that can switch RX/TX.
Maybe see SerialMunger | Hackaday.io
