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Can I solder an RJ45 on my Macintosh LC PDS Ethernet card?
Posted by: MrGasS27 on 2018-04-15 11:57:04 Hi everybody! My Macintosh LC came with a PDS ethernet card, I want to solder an RJ45 female port on it in order to connect my Macintosh LC to my AppleTalk local network, can I solder it or should I put a capacitor on C13? I don't know if there are missing parts. Thank you.
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-15 12:32:16 Looks to me like C13 is the designation of the capacitor next to C12. Dunno about the footprint, but looks like there would be a transceiver IC soldered in those 12 thruholes if 10bT was supported. A 10bT LC NIC will likely cost less than a transceiver box and will definitely be more convenient.
Posted by: MrGasS27 on 2018-04-15 13:19:11 Looks to me like C13 is the designation of the capacitor next to C12. Dunno about the footprint, but looks like there would be a transceiver IC soldered in those 12 thruholes if 10bT was supported. A 10bT LC NIC will likely cost less than a transceiver box and will definitely be more convenient. I think this too...
Posted by: MrGasS27 on 2018-04-15 13:34:37 After some researches I discovered that the card's name is "API Engineering EtherRun LC" and yes, I have to solder something. Here it is a picture I found
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-15 13:46:42 Yep, makes sense. You might be able to snag that component somewhere, but there's also ROM support as a consideration. If I were doing a tiered product line based on the same PCB, I'd definitely lame the ROM on your NIC just as sure as Apple did for the LC Memory limit. [}🙂] Another NIC would never go to waste. [🙂]
Posted by: MrGasS27 on 2018-04-15 13:50:27 Yep, I think that the missing component it's a 10Base-T filter, I'll check somewhere for this component and if I'll find it I will give a try with this card
Posted by: joethezombie on 2018-04-15 13:55:12 Yeah, it seems that just soldering on an RJ45 wouldn't be enough. As jt says, the ROMs are most likely different, as the labels suggest. Likely, you could burn a new ROM, but that's probably not enough. One resistor bank is completely missing on your card, and I can spy different values on at least one resistor on the other bank. Likely, you'd have to rework those as well. With as cheap as LC network cards are, best just to buy one with the port you want.
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-15 13:57:47 It's undoubtedly a transceiver converting basic AUI/ThickNet to 10bT, another chipthingie or two on there converts AUI to ThinNet. Those would be the components on the two card breakout board setup Asante NICs
Posted by: MrGasS27 on 2018-04-15 14:08:55 Yeah, it seems that just soldering on an RJ45 wouldn't be enough. As jt says, the ROMs are most likely different, as the labels suggest. Likely, you could burn a new ROM, but that's probably not enough. One resistor bank is completely missing on your card, and I can spy different values on at least one resistor on the other bank. Likely, you'd have to rework those as well. With as cheap as LC network cards are, best just to buy one with the port you want. Reworking the card and adding the resistors isn't a problem for me, but I'm doubtful about the ROM... I think I'll put away this card...
Posted by: SE30_Neal on 2018-04-26 10:46:52 Can you not just use a twisted pair adaptor from the coaxial to convert it to rj45?
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-26 11:53:08 If this isn't what you mean, he'd need a 10base2/ThinNet transceiver dongle(?) containing the equivalent of the missing IC on his board to get 10baseT twisted pair function. A new card would be less money and far more convenient than any converter. ThickNet/AUI Transceivers are readily available. Using one with Asante's SE/30/IIsi NICs would be handy for keeping the connection internal and the backplane free for Video-out in implementing ants' WiFi hack. A ThinNet dongle for a NuBus card might make some sense. A Transceiver would be an appreciable percentage of the size of an LC. :lol: Dunno about cost, haven't seen one on eBay. The other reason for using a dongle of any kind would be Apple's idiotic AAUI connector on the huge backplane plate of their NuBus NIC or the less ridiculous use of it as abackplane connector for built-in Ethernet.
Posted by: SE30_Neal on 2018-04-26 11:56:43 I know trash i have one on the back of my asante se/30 card it sticks out miles but only cost me £6 from ebay lol
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-26 12:03:09 Aha! Desolder the Coaxial connector and wire up your box inside the SE/30. :cheesy: edit: WiFi antenna sticking out out the nice round hole optional, but twisted pair would do.
Posted by: SE30_Neal on 2018-04-26 12:10:24 Its nearly as big as my se/30 lol. Ah well It works with the network card so to take a soldering iron to the board doesn’t dound wise as it might stop working so i’ll live with it doubling the size od my se/30 🙂
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-26 12:35:36 The other option I have on hand is the hub I had hooked up to DSL back in the day. It can be used as a standard ThinNet port on the hub as well. Sounds like it's a LOT smaller and more far more useful than your box. Keep an eye out for one. :cheesy: I'm hoping mine still works, there's a Futura SX DaughterCard waiting for hookup if I ever bother to do the networking thing again.
Posted by: SE30_Neal on 2018-04-26 12:52:01 Ah sounds a better option, i was hoping i would come across the later rj45 version but never have and what is it with these expansion cards costing 3-4 times the cost of the macs themselves, theres iix accelerator card on ebay at the moment its £250 grr
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-26 13:19:17 In camera collecting, I learned early on to buy up the extras whenever I could like shades for lenses I might never find. The value of those have held up fairly well whereas eBay cut the value of collectable cameras to much lower levels. The extra cost extras are always much rarer than what they're accessorizing. Same's true of cards, peripherals and especially accelerators for Macintosh collecting. Supply was always far short for high end/pro gear as few bought them (like lens shades) and are prized by all but OEM baseline showcase collectors in this game. The only accelerators that seem reasonably priced are for G3/x100 NuBus PPC. But then again, ALL those first gen boxes needed acceleration from the get go. Any SCSI peripheral in the ZFP form factor seems like it's listed for stupid money to me.
Posted by: SE30_Neal on 2018-04-26 13:30:19 There’s 4 DayStar accelerators on ebay at the moment but they’re really expensive, i cant justify paying £300-400 when its just cost me £500-600 to get my se/30 capped, working, 128 mb memory, 1gb hdd, zip drive, external CD-ROM, a performa 6200, monitor, modem, networking stuff and new os, software and loads of spare1.44 floppies. Plus the wife would kill me and cut my bits off
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2018-04-26 13:39:58 You're married with bits? :shocked:
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