Emag to warp cable...

[Justus]

I'm making two intellifeed-warp cables, and I also want to also make an Emag-warp cable. What's the connector on the Emag side of the cable called? Anyone got a digikey part number?

[OneSelfLost]

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/51021-0200/WM1720-ND/242842

and 2 of these

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/50058-8100/WM5025-ND/1998194

[Justus]

So you crimp the sockets onto the wires, and then slide/snap them into the female housing? Do you need anything special to crimp on the sockets, or can that be done carefully with needle-nose pliers or something?

[athomas]

You need specialized crimpers for those connector pins. The crimpers are about $215.

[OneSelfLost]

You could probably get away with needle nose pliers and a steady hand. Grab a few extras and give it a try, never hurts to try.

[Justus]

Yeah, the parts are cheap enough to give it a try. I googled another source that said you can use electrician's pliers instead of the $215 crimp tool and it will work, it just won't be as clean of a crimp.

As an alternative, I also found a pre-crimped wire (12") available for sale too ( http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&itemSeq=107309543&uq=634572009165183916 ), and if I can get by with a 6" cable from the grip to the warp, then I should be able to get a full Emag-Warp cable per single wire ordered by cutting them exactly in half. If not, I'll just cut one end off and use the length I need. I'm ordering a couple of these to be safe, too.

If everything ends up working and I have a few extra cables, then I'll just throw 'em up on the BST. I probably won't get that lucky, but this is a learning experience. ;)

[OneSelfLost]

Last week I was digging through my box of parts and found an old set of eyes from a Piranha UTB board and noticed the connectors were identical. Lucky find I guess. I just cut the LED off, extended it, and added the mono headphone jack on it. Oh! The connection is polarized, so make sure the positive and negative are on the correct headphone terminal. I can't remember which is which, ill check when I get home from work and let you know.

[theGOLDENchild]

Or have Tuna make you a custom length cable.

[athomas]

I couldn't get the link to work to see what precrimped wires were available. I know that doing crimps with small needle nose pliers will be very suspect. These crimp pins are very small. You would be better off getting Tuna or someone else that has a crimper to crimp some wires for you and send them. The cost would be minimal and shipping would be just the cost of a stamp.

[Justus]

The precrimped wire is just a 12" 28awg wire with a female picoblade socket crimped on each end. Cut in half and put side-by-side into a female picoblade housing, and I should have a 6" cable ready to attach the 3/32" mono plug.

It has a manufacturer sku, so apparently it comes from the factory through quality control this way. I placed the order earlier this morning so when it comes in I'll report back how everything looks.

Also looking forward to seeing how the polarity is supposed to go. I'm a bit surprised that it matters since it makes no difference with the intellifeed cable.

[OneSelfLost]

Okay, the bottom wire of the molex connector, looking at the board with screen towards you, goes to the outside of the mono plug.

The top wire goes to the inner connector of the mono plug (the tip).

You will also need to change a jumper in the warp feed so it accepts a positive pulse as an input method.

This is why the intellifeed works without polarity making a difference, the jumper sources the power. In this case, the gun sources the power.

The trace on the board which supplies the warp feed is actually the same trace that supplies the signal to the Mosfet to fire the gun. So the same pin on the microcontroller is signaling both the mosfet and the warp feed. (This isn't important to know, just a random factoid). I was actually kind of surprised when I was mapping the board to find this out.

[Tunaman]

The 1.25 molex connector has a use rating of about 10 times on and off(crimped properly) so dont expect them to last long if you dont use the right tool. I'll make you any size/color you want just let me know.

[Justus]

Wow, so you mean even if I bought a pre-made warp cable I would only be able to take it on and off the board about 10 times before it wouldn't work anymore?

I'll probably have to place another order with you soon, Tuna, for when I get my new trigger anodized and need a return magnet. I'm guessing I'm not going to be able to get the magnet out of the stock trigger. If my side project here doesn't pan out, I'll be sure to add on a new cable. Write "sucker" on my forehead, but I just got to try to DIY first. ;)

[Tunaman]

Wow, so you mean even if I bought a pre-made warp cable I would only be able to take it on and off the board about 10 times before it wouldn't work anymore?

I'll probably have to place another order with you soon, Tuna, for when I get my new trigger anodized and need a return magnet. I'm guessing I'm not going to be able to get the magnet out of the stock trigger. If my side project here doesn't pan out, I'll be sure to add on a new cable. Write "sucker" on my forehead, but I just got to try to DIY first. ;)
1,25mm is very small and not very strong...not made for repeated disconnections. I get more than 10 for sure, so I am just stating the rating of the connector.

[Justus]

Ok, that's good to know.

UPDATE:

I got in the parts from Digikey (which, by the way, included a green LED screen - and I had to trim down the 14 pins in order to make it fit, which I found a bit odd), and I can report that attempting to crimp on the tiny female sockets with needle nose pliers would be extremely frustrating. I haven't even tried it, it just looks that impossible.

However, the pre-crimped wires look really good. The sockets popped right into the housing with no problems, and I was able to then install and uninstall the plug in my Emag lowers. Each wire has both ends pre-crimped, so a single wire with a single housing can make a full plug. The wires don't seem to be a full 12" though, more like 8" to 10", so after you plug in both sides into a single housing and cut in half you'll end up with a 4" to 5" 2-conductor wire that you can then extend to a length that you need. Looking at it briefly, it seems I'll need at least a 3" extension with the mono plug attached.

Now that I've revisited this thread to check the polarity that the wire needs to have, I'll go back to the project and finish soldering the connections and finish the cable. I've been taking pictures, so I'll also upload those in a tutorial form when I get it finished and working.

Thanks everyone for the information.

[OneSelfLost]

That is awesome that you found the pre-crimped cables!

I just finished building an extra cable for my programmer. No crimper, just tweezers, pliers, one of those "helping hands with magnifier" contraptions, and a soldering iron. I soldered them on to make sure they would stay after I "crimped" them.

I can attest it was a pain in the.. yea.

[Justus]

Alright, all done and everything worked perfectly. THANKS!

Here's the new thread for the tutorial with pics: http://automags.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2781835

[OneSelfLost]

Very good write up! That should be stickied!