[OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

Here's some information that can help you program the Cortex to operate the IFI spike. You have to make special PWM cable wiring changes to make this work properly.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

For tools and materials to make these cables from scratch, there seems to be a general consenus that Hansen Hobbies (http://www.hansenhobbies.com/) makes the best tools and provides great materials. We have a $15 economy tool (http://www.hansenhobbies.com/product...ools/crimp_ec/) and one of the connector kits (http://www.hansenhobbies.com/product...rkits/ck_psck/) at $21, that we also use for FRC.

I think the alternative would be to solder two PWM wires together (sacrificing one connector) to achieve this wiring layout.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

When I only needed one side of the Spike, I just cut the red wire in the PWM cable and called it good. Actually, I think I removed it from the PWM terminal in such a way that I could re-assemble it if I ever wanted to use the cable again.


If I were to need both sides, I would likely pull out the red wire of the Cortex-side terminal and put it into a new shell, that's probably the easiest.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

That's precisely what we did (for a spike we never used). I recommend this thread be stickied, because it took me a long while to find the article post referenced by Marc, and I think this page will be relevant for a while longer.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

Andrew,
An important benefit of keeping the red wire in the connector and perhaps cutting it off a few inches from the connector is that it increases the friction forces which helps the connector stay in position in a controller such as the Cortex. When I built Cortex compatible cables I actually built a 2 row by 3 column Molex connector in the Cortex (3 pins) configuring the IO to use 2 digital adjacent outputs. I then used the two adjacent (white) signals to go to the Spike PWM cable where it became red for one and white for the other. I only used one wire for the black on both sides. Because the connector came out somewhat easily, I found myself adding a red wire jumper on the Cortex side so I now had 5 pins filled in the 2 by 3 Molex connector.

Oh yes, both sides of the Cortex to spike pwm cable were made with male pins so that no adapter was necessary to be used in the Cortex like the typical use of a pwm extension cable.

BTW, thanks for your posting Colin S on the PWM cables from Hansen Hobbies ... very helpful.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

We solve any friction-fit PWM cable issues with RTV.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

Andrew,
Do you have a picture of how you used the RTV to help you? Blue RTV? I might have guessed the use of a hot glue gun but not RTV.

Re: [OCCRA]: OCCRA Cortex wiring for IFI SPike
 

Clear, usually.

We usually take a very large blob and glue all of the PWM cables into their destination. We also try to get as much contact area as possible by forcing it into the cracks between the two connectors.

For inline connections, we usually wrap a small zip tie through the cables, instead of using RTV.