[Techtoolslist] Assman "Ribbon Cable Tester"

[John Robertson]

Anyone else playing with one of these? It is a ribbon cable tester I 
found on eBay and you teach it for each cable being tested. It only 
remembers the current cable under test. Inside it says "Ribbon B2 Hobbes 
CO." on the main PCB. Doesn't appear to be any town called Hobbes in 
Colorado...(Calvin & Hobbes pops up of course)

This device runs off 9VDC wall wart or has a battery which you can also 
run it off. My unit drains the battery rather quickly when off and the 
wall wart is not plugged in. The 9V battery is not used to retain 
memory, that function is covered with a HM6265WH-70 CMOS RAM which is 
maintained by a 10Ufd cap that is charged by a diode to the 5VDC buss. 
That size cap drained from 4.8VDC to 2.6VDC overnight. If you want to 
store longer, then use a bigger cap.

The annoying thing about this tester is the 9V battery drainage means 
there is always a LOW BATTERY warning on the display. So I have to 
sketch out the 9V battery circuit and figure out why there are so many 
jumpers installed from the factory for that battery.

I have uploaded manual and photos of the outside and inside of the gizmo 
in case you are curious to:

ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment/Assman

We are producing ribbon cables for arcade games and it will be nice to 
have this working correctly.

John :-#)#

-- 
How to subscribe or unsubscribe from TTL 
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist