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DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:21 pm
by 53E7
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:02 pm
by garyb
good job.
dante!?
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:52 pm
by 53E7
I finished the cable over the weekend. It actually worked great. If I ever need another one, I’d try and source a different housing for the cable. It was a REALLY tight fit. This was a fairly inexpensive project. l had all of the cables and most of the connectors, left over from projects over the years. I used an old Apogee cable cut in half for my S/PDIF in and out. The other cables are audiophile silver conductor cable. If you are going to do this be sure to buy a few extra D-Sub connectors. It took me 3 connectors to get to the final breakout cable. The pins easily shift around when hot so you need to be very careful. You should be highly skilled with a soldering iron. This would not make a good first soldering project!
Here are the D-Sub connectors. I bought them from an eBay seller in Taiwan.

You need to buy the housing separately.

Here are the cables. I repurposed this really high end Apogee S/PDIF cable by cutting it in half (now I have two cables!)

I soldered the connectors to these wires before soldering them all to the D-Sub. I'm not sure I'd do it that way again.

There is the final cable (upper right). Simple and uncluttered. Just what I wanted!

Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:27 am
by garyb
hehe, fun huh?
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:04 am
by the19thbear
Looks great! A clean cable run always makes me happy! great job

Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:24 pm
by dante
garyb wrote:good job.
dante!?
Yep already on it.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 5:16 am
by YiannisK
Hi,
I'm so glad you posted this cause I'm going to need to make my own cable.
I just got another 15dsp card off eBay to add to my set up for a steel but it came without a breakout cable.
Problem is that I don't know if the card needs a breakout cable with the xlr's or rca's.
How can I find out if the card is a project or a plus card?
It has the 4 adat slots of course so it's not a zlink one.
May it doesn't matter what breakout cable I make?
Please help me out
Thanks
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:47 am
by garyb
yes, it matters.
it'll be hard to tell without something to compare to. there is an extra chip in the i/o card for plus i/o.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:22 pm
by YISH313z
Ah, so thats who outbidded me.

Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 6:34 am
by astroman
shit happens...

Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 2:11 pm
by 53E7
YiannisK wrote:How can I find out if the card is a project or a plus card?
If this is an additional Scope card, the best way to determine which card you just bought is to take your existing breakout cable from the card you already have and attach it to your new card once the new card is inside your PC and connected to your existing card with a STDM cable. Connect a device using the digital in or out of your Scope breakout cable and see if you pass any audio. AES/EBU and SPDIF are completely different, so if you are getting audio with the SPDIF then you know which one it is. If not then hopefully it is AES/EBU (and not a dead card).
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:18 pm
by garyb
actually, AES/EBU and SP/DIF are IDENTICAL signal-wise. the first is balanced and the second is unbalanced and the balanced level is hotter, just like the audio.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 4:31 pm
by YiannisK
Thanks all for the replies!!
@ YISH313z Sorry I out bid you but glad I won the card.
As for the breakout cable , I had a project I/o with breakout cable lying around that I forgot about and put that on the card and all is working great!!
I will attempt to make a breakout cable to go with the extra I/o project I have.
I love the fact that a 10+ year old card does what it does today and is still ahead of it's time compared to other cards.
Creamware S|C Will never die.!
To all who are fed up with these cards not working for them in new computers with octa cores and 8 terabytes of ram just
sell them and go buy a sound blaster, that should work.

lol
I'm sure someone will get good use out of them.
Thanks all.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 8:16 am
by Epsilon Cygni
Hello, can anyone confirm if Scope Project (unbalanced) pinout is valid for old Pulsar 1 cards?
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:17 pm
by garyb
yes, it is, if the Pulsar has unbalanced i/o.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:38 am
by Epsilon Cygni
Happy to know, thank you!
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:39 am
by Shamk
Did anyone tried to give some space behind the computer case with an extension cord (~1Meter) for the breakout cables ?

Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:41 am
by garyb
you can do that with any cable.
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 1:49 pm
by seyit_26
Photo link dead.
renew.
being happy.
I thank you.
My Email:
seyit.ozturk@hotmail.com 
Re: DIY PCI Breakout Cables Project with Pinout
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 1:52 pm
by dante
@seyit_26 - pics are all mirrored in article here FYI
http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_15/dsub_mst.htm