Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas

So, after finishing my LSDj Keyboard the other week, I've embarked on my quest to build PS/2 to DMG adapters, which is relatively simple in theory. I chose to use DMG-04 cables and to swap the pins using Trash80's method.

However, when I got my cable apart, I found something anomalous:

As you can see, these don't match the plug body and pin design from the DMG-04 used in Trash80's demonstration.

Anyway, I've managed to complete one of these, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting the pin to release on the second (the other end of the same cable). I had to cut part of the plastic bridge over the pin slots away to even be able to depress the pins.

This raises some questions:

  • Has anyone else encountered this DMG-04 hardware variation before?

  • If so, what were your experiences?

  • How the fuck do I get this pin out?!

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 2, 2012 7:16 pm)

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas

Well, I finally got that pin situation figured out on the other end of that cable.

From what I can tell, the two slots on the top of the cable body are accesses for a pair of microtweezers to spring the barbs that keep it captive in the plug body. So, instead of pressing them out with a jewelers screwdriver, one would ideally use a pair of tweezers smaller than I have to squeeze the two sides of the pin – I ended up using bent staples. Really.

When I got it out, I took another picture to illustrate what I mean:

By the time I finally got this one out of there, I'd bent the pin in such a way that it wouldn't spring back and stay in the new slot. I had to carefully bend the barbs that hold it in place back out a wee bit, and then it stayed in its new slot.

So, there you have it: One weird hardware variation on the DMG-04 Link Cable. Modders Beware!

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 3, 2012 7:55 am)

GoingHam
Offline
Chicago

I think I ran into this before once or twice, I just used a small Flathead to release the clippys.
From what I've read there has been much debate on the DMG 04 cables for attachment in keyboard modifying.
All I am saying is that it'd save you a lot of time and frustration to acquire a mystical DMG 07 (I have yet to try this ever though, just two DMG 04 wires at least one with the pin swap method)

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas

I had three DMG-07s and decided against using them, because I really hate destroying rarer hardware.

Also, these link cables are cheaper and you get two adapters/keyboard cables out of one.

None of that is to disqualify your input, which is certainly valid. What was the debate? I'm not sure why the re-pinning method wouldn't work… it's not like the fifth (ground) contact in the DMG-07 cable actually goes to anything inside the keyboard when you use one of those instead.

As for the jeweler's screwdriver thing, the smallest ones I have a 1.2mm diameter flatheads, and they were still too big to depress this style of pin on each side. hmm

GoingHam
Offline
Chicago

I found my old thread I started a while back talking about DMG 04, pin swapping, and LSDJ versions.
This should help you out a bit : http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/6698/ … lp-please/

kineticturtle
Offline
Matthew Joseph Payne

DMG-07s are rare?

You can build an entire arduinoboy into a DMG-07 btw, looks super classy.

GoingHam
Offline
Chicago
kineticturtle wrote:

DMG-07s are rare?

Well I for one have never even seen/heard of anything about the 07's until I came to this website haha.

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

I just get generic multi-link cables. They almost always have 6 pins and 6 wires. Cheaper than a DMG-07 by far.
Just use a multimeter of some sort to figure out which wire is which pin.

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas

Yeah, if you could find generic multi-cables that have both the DMG and CGB head and a full pinout, that would be the primo keyboard cable for sure.