Driver Station 0.1" 3x20 Header Cable?

[Travis Hoffman]

Has anyone located a source for a receptacle and cable (multicolor ribbon, preferably) that mates to the 3 high x 20 wide bank of 0.1" I/O header pins on the Driver Station? I'd like to run a single cable connection to a custom button box and pick and choose which I/O I wish to use from inside the box. This is analogous to what we used to do with the 4 D-SUB ports on the IFI Operator Interface.

I don't want to pick and choose using PWM cables plugged into the DS, because I don't want to leave any pins exposed, increasing the risk of Mr. E(S)D rearing its ugly head. I also do not want a spaghetti mess of cables.

I've looked through Digikey but haven't found anything exactly matching what I need. Maybe it's possible to break the connections up (4, 8, 8)?

Any help is appreciated.

[PhilBot]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Has anyone located a source for a receptacle and cable (multicolor ribbon, preferably) that mates to the 3 high x 20 wide bank of 0.1" I/O header pins on the Driver Station? I'd like to run a single cable connection to a custom button box and pick and choose which I/O I wish to use from inside the box.

I agree with your strategy, but I couldn't find such a cable.

During beta testing I made up a PCB that had header sockets that mated with the Driver Station and then had a 24pin ribbon cable connector.

You only need to connect to a few of the power/ground pins, so I used a 2x20 and a 4x1 connector. I wrote up a paper on getting it built. At the time I did the PCB I didn't know there were no internal pullups (D'OH)

This is the sort of thuing that takes a day to design and $60 and 3 days to get built from ExpressPCB.com.

[whitetiger0990]

Originally Posted by PhilBot

This is the sort of thuing that takes a day to design and $60 and 3 days to get built from ExpressPCB.com.

Niiiice. That's amazing. Have you tried etching your own PCB?

If we have time I might just borrow this idea. =)

[SuperBK]

Nice. I may make one by hand and just add blue wires as we need them.
Thanks,
Brian

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Euro connectors come in the same pin spacing and can be used with ribbon cable. There are a variety that are available from Digikey. You just have to look. You may also find them under DIN spacing connectors and you may be able to get a Euro to DB cable made up if that helps.

[BradFerg]

This series from Samtec might work:
http://www.samtec.com/ftppub/pdf/idsd.pdf

They don't offer a three row connector, but it appears that you'd be able to place a double row and a single row together. I would contact one of their application engineers to verify this.

They have online pricing, I think you could get both cable assemblies with stripped/plated ends for about $20.

They do have three row board mount connectors if you were going to build a PCB. I think it's the SSQ series.