Serial cable?

[Colin]

The factory serial cable that came with my Summa D750 Pro plotter is going to be too short when I re-arrange my shop, so I need to get a longer one made (about 25'). Tech support at Summa sent me a pdf showing the special requirements.

Does anyone know where these can be had/made?

 

[gabagoo]

How far does the cable have to go? They probably wont be so easy to find anymore but I have a drawer with at least 3 or 4 cables. If you cant find one let me know and I will send you one gratis.

 

[ZsVinylInc]

Try a company I believe called Blackbox. At my last job we use to use a lot of serial cables that were pre made and I believe we use to get them from this company.

 

[Colin]

How far does the cable have to go? They probably wont be so easy to find anymore but I have a drawer with at least 3 or 4 cables. If you cant find one let me know and I will send you one gratis.

Wow, thanks! It needs to be a minimum of 25'

The guy at Summa said that it is not a regular old serial cable. It is wired in a particular way for their cutters.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

this place: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=934&sku=52085
has quite a few different serial cables... this one might work for your plotter.

I ordered some a/v cables for the home theater from them a while back. Seem to be a pretty reputable company.

 

[jiarby]

you can also buy some db9 female connectors and a length of cable and make your own. You need a wire stripper, and a cable crimper to attach the pins on the end of the wires. The pins then attach to the db9... some are just clip on, and some are solder on.

If you have ever made an ethernet cable you can do this one to.

If not... blackbox is good, but there are a million custom cable companies online. Anyone with scissors and pliers can be a cable guy.

 

[Colin]

you can also buy some db9 female connectors and a length of cable and make your own. You need a wire stripper, and a cable crimper to attach the pins on the end of the wires. The pins then attach to the db9... some are just clip on, and some are solder on.

If you have ever made an ethernet cable you can do this one to.

If not... blackbox is good, but there are a million custom cable companies online. Anyone with scissors and pliers can be a cable guy.

Thanks. I'm pretty handy in many things, but anything electronics isn't one of them. I just never learned it.

gabagoo: After looking at my diagram, and what Summa said, do you think that yours will work?

 

[gabagoo]

Mine are just your straight ordinary go in the store 'do you have any serial cable" type.
Heck I never knew they made different ones, but amazingly over the years they all worked. Not sure whats so different about a summa that it needs a custom.
On my Summa I use a serial cable but I think it came with the plotter and the cable is a lot thinner than the serial I use for my Graphtec so maybe they are different.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

+1 for Cables to Go, they've got just about anything under the sun and they'll custom make anything you need as well.

Plus, their one of our best customers so I have to return the favor sometimes...

 

[tcorn1965]

Colin,
Here is an easy, no way to mess up, way to do it. You already have the cable with the correct pin outs on it with your excisting serial cable, your db9 M/F sides. All you need is a 25' chunk of cable to use, all serial cables are the same, some just pin out differently. So buy any 25' serial cable from somewhere like CDW and cut the ends off and strip the individual wires down about a 1/4 inch. Then take your existing serial cable and cut it in half, strip all those wires about 1/4 inch, then just match up all colors and wala there is your needed length. Once the wires are connected I would solder and then use electric tape to connect. You cant go wrong because you already have the correct pin out, your just matching wirecolors at this point. I have done this many times.

Terry

 

[Colin]

Great - thanks for all the tips.

Red is negative, right?

 

[J Hill Designs]

I think the correct cable is RS-232 null modem cable...

 

[Colin]

Sorry to drag this up again, but one guy said to me that all I need to do is use my existing Summa cable, and buy a standard serial cable at the length I need to complete the span. He said: because I am using the Summa cable which has the proper pinning on each end, the std cable simply extends the plotter or computer end. Does that make sense?


Thx

 

[Techman]

you can get long null cables..
But there is a max usable length of about 50 ft...

 

[round man]

what you need is a null modem cable,but if you have one then all you need is a normal serial cable extention,...you don't want to hook to null modem cables together or you defeat the purpose of the null modem cable,...there are two pins swapped on a null modem cable. They are swapped so the plotter can handshake with the computer,..if you hook up two cables with the pins swapped on both of them they will cancel each other out as if the pins were never swapped,...either get yourself a 25' null modem cable or a 25' serial extention and hook it up to your existing cable. Don't ask me how I came to know this,...the research it took to come to this scientific conclusion was very very frustrating .

 

[Colin]

Thanks round man!

 

[Zzyzx]

Cables to Go has them in many lengths. They also have extender cables.
They ars called DB 9 serial cables
Good Luck

Chuck