Rowdy's Model M refurbishment

[rowdy]

Some parts have been obtained.

Not as much choice in the jiffy boxes as I'd hoped.  The ones closer to the ideal size were metal - harder to make holes in.  Otherwise too small or way too big.

[rowdy]

Holes have been made and sockety things successfully test-fitted.  Then I ran into a few distractions and ran out of time to do anything else.

[fohat.digs]

The ones closer to the ideal size were metal - harder to make holes in. 

I have had good success with the metal ones. They are aluminum and quite easy to drill, plus they look and feel better.

Plastic ones tend to crack when you make larger holes in them.

[rowdy]

The ones closer to the ideal size were metal - harder to make holes in. 

I have had good success with the metal ones. They are aluminum and quite easy to drill, plus they look and feel better.

Plastic ones tend to crack when you make larger holes in them.

I have limited tools available.

Back in the day I made a few projects that I put into plastic cases with a modicum of success, so I followed the same route with this.

So far so good ...

[rowdy]

No real progress the last few days.

There were a couple of hot days, a couple of warm days, and the last few days have been cool (around 20 degrees) with some rain, which is much more preferable.

As I am going back to work tomorrow (Monday), I was trying to get some last minute things done, which took up most of the time.

However planning has proceeded, and I wondered about soldering the headers onto my ProMicro, gathering some wires with 1x sockets on the end and soldering the bare end to the back of the DIN socket, and simply plugging the other end into the ProMicro headers.

That way the components would be reusable.

This may become relevant if I wanted to internalise the ProMicro, as I could simply use female-female jumper cables to connect the pins on the M122 controller board directly to the ProMicro.

On another note, I disconnected the DIP switch so I could wash the case, but now that I come to reconnect it I have discovered that there are more pins on the controller PCB than sockets on the DIP switch plug.  A few searches proved fruitless.  Does anyone know which side of the PCB plug the DIP switches are supposed to be connected to?

[fohat.digs]

I think that would work fine in principle, although it might not be very pretty ....

I have taken an old IDE cable and cut off a block of plastic with the last 6 sockets and their accompanying wires. That has proven easier than worrying with 6 individual wires flopping around.

But when I know that I am never looking back, I just cut the end off the original cable and use it directly since it has 1 blocked hole, is properly color-coded, and is guaranteed to fit properly.

[rowdy]

Using an old IDE cable is a great idea!

I have a box full of them (along with old floppy drive cables and various SCSI cables).

I try to make things reusable if possible, to save costs and because it is difficult to get some things down here.  Mind you with online auction sites and such it is getting easier, even if it does take 3 weeks or so for things to arrive.