Bulk Electronic connectors Supplier ?

[gymratz]

I have been looking for a supplier of the following.

6 pin mini din plugs (male) 9 way d-type female + covers USB -> 9 Way Serial convertor

'tis to make up come connector leads Somewhere that sells in bulk preferably as I would rather buy in multiples of 10 up to 50 at a shot. Perhaps not quite so many usb -> serial convertors.

the Din plughs I have found for about 20p each, but I can only find Maplins selling the d-type for around £1 per connector excluding covers.

TIA

Pete

--

Equipment, Fitness Equipment and plenty more besides.

[Urban Legend]

"Pete @

" wrote in message news:fe6cmu$e9e$ [e-mail]...

-- regards

[meow2222]

rapid electronics

NT

[John Rumm]

CPC or rapid as the others said...

Best source for these I have found at reasonable prices is eBay.

[Simon]

You could try

and as well.

RS sell the mini din plugs with an unterminated length of cable already attached - this might be worth considering unless you have ninja soldering skills. I find it really difficult to make robust leads with those fiddly little mini din connectors, and find buying them with a bit of cable already attached makes life much easier.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Have you tried Ebay? Packs of connectors come up quite regularly - but of course rarely at the time when you need them. Do a search on the item and select Ebay to email you if it comes up later.

[Mike Harrison]

Be aware that the cheap ones may not do proper RS232 levels - not even the +-7v typical of low-power transceivers, just TTL 0V/5V levels. This may or may not be a problem depending on what you're connecting to.

As well as Rapid & CPC,

are good for less mainstream connectors.

You really don't want to get into terminating mini-din plugs - find a source of ready-moulded plug/cable assemblies - sometimes it can be cheaper to buy things like extender cables and chop the sockets, or plug-plug cables and chop in half.

[meow2222]

+-7v typical of low-power

I assume its not poss to use an old serial port + adaptor to talk to a usb device. Got a machine with dead usb port.

NT

[Simon]

the +-7v typical of low-power

I haven't seen anything that can do that. All USB-to-serial converters I've seen are designed to give PCs that have USB ports but no serial port the ability to talk to serial devices.

If a serial-to-USB convertor does exist, it would probably require its own power supply, as USB hosts can generally supply 500mA at 5V, while a serial port can't be relied on for much more than 10mA. It would also be limited to the speed of the serial port, which is likely to be much lower than USB speed.

You can buy expansion cards that will give laptops and desktops extra USB ports.

[Adrian C]

That's

(or if you want)

Who ever advised them on that domain name should have been shot....

[dennis]

"Pete @

" wrote in message news:fe6cmu$e9e$ [e-mail]...

Are you sure its 6 pin? The "standard" serial port of Mac variety is 8 pin. Its also what Yamaha keyboards use for their serial port.. I made some by buying plug to plug leads and cutting them in half and soldering on a 9 way D.

[Pete Verdon]

True, but I don't think it's quite as dumb as it seems. Pretty sure that there used to be a minimum length on domain names once upon a time, so they couldn't have just been rs.com . I suspect that changed once bigger two-letter companies like BT got interested.

I believe it also used to be invalid to start a domain with a number;

3com got that changed :-)

Pete

[Ian White]

The rs.com domain name belongs to Rocket Software of Newton, Massachusetts, USA, presumably because they got there first. The next "RS" company to become aware of the need for a domain name would probably have been Radio Shack Corporation, who had to settle for radioshack.com.

That leaves our RS company sadly trailing... and they have still left rs.co.uk up for grabs by anyone else who cares to misuse it.

Serves them right for not sticking with "Radiospares".

[Alan]

In message , Ian White wrote

Surely it was Reject Spares? I can remember when they overprinted the manufacturers part number on ICs with their own stock number. With a suitable solvent the overprinting could be removed to reveal that the real part number. It was only then that you discovered that your circuit wasn't working because the part wasn't what they advertised :(

[Owain]

Clydesdale Bank got cbonline.com

Owain

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Possibly, but you'd presumably bought it as a 741 op-amp etc so why bother about the actual manufacturer?

[Frank Erskine]

Just the other day I got a flyer from CPC 'essentials' (?!) listing loads of various interconnecting thingies which ICBA to check out, but you might find something suitable there (their offers on these run from 6 Oct to 16 Nov for some obscure reason). Glancing at some of their stuff I'm not too sure about the quality, especially with trade names such as 'Pro-Signal'. To me, anything which labels itself as 'Pro-*' has to be treated with a certain amount of suspicion :-). For example, their 'TV Coax Leads' ad shows a not-very-close-jointed "Belling-Lee" type female plug, supposedly gold-plated, but looking quite silvery :-) Tandy, when they existed, did have a good range of very good quality leads (as well as some good stuff such as pressure zone microphones, electronic stop watches and so on) - it's a pity their marketing wasn't so good.

[Ian White]

Or until stocks run out. Unlike the suppliers of professional/industrial electronic components, CPC are dealing much more in the "spot markets" for consumer goods which are made in finite production runs, so WTGTG (when they're gone, they're gone) and they are never made again.

Unfortunately that means you can't always trust the printed catalogue which only comes out once a year.

You can't always trust the photographs either.

If anybody has a spare Tandy pressure zone microphone lying around, please contact me off-list! They are said to be magic for miking the bass end of a squeezebox, but when Radio Shack (Tandy's US parent company) stopped carrying them, they just stopped being made... another sad example of WTGTG.

[Frank Erskine]

The Tandy PZM came with a 1/4" mono plug fitted, but if you chopped that off you could fit an XLR plug - the microphone (and cable) had a balanced output.

[manatbandq]

No, you need a USB host to talk to your USB device. USB-serial adapters are USB devices.

Not to mention the processor to run the USB software stack.

Since there are no power pins on a serial port they should not be relied upon for anything. Yes, I know it's done, but it's very shoddy design.

MBQ