Computer upload cable

[mfalco]

Has anybody made their own cable to upload dive computers to their PC?

[FireM]

what computer do you use...
I made myself cable for aladin pro ultra...

[mfalco]

Mine is an oceanic pro plus 2

[FireM]

sorry I don't have sheme for that ....

[bperrybap]

While the interface to the computer is done via Serial interface,
its going to be pretty tough to make a DIY "cable" for the Oceanic/Aeris/Sherwood/
computers.
I looked at it for a while and can offer some details.
Oceanic contracted through a design house to custom make this cable and write
the driver for it. It appears that FTDI was used to create the product.

The existing cable isn't really just a cable. It is a USB to serial converter.
It uses a FTDI chip to do the USB to Serial conversion. The chip is FT232BM.
You can look it up on the FTDI website for details.

Assuming you still want to try making a cable here is some more information.

The first stumbling block will be mechanical. (for the connector itself)
The connector uses a mechanical fitting that has 3 spring loaded pins that push against
against the 3 metal ridges in the computer and even slightly retract under the slight
pressure when you insert the connector in the computers data port socket.
I always thought that it should be possible to find this connector. I've been
unsuccessful trying to locate this connector. I had thought that it might even be used
on a cell phone and that perhaps an off the shelf cell phone data cable might be used.
I've had no luck trying to locate anything that would work.
The best thing to do would probably be to actually contact FTDI and see if they
could give you the connector source.

The second stumbling block will be s/w related.
While Oceanlog & ACI s/w do use a serial interface it isn't a simple rs232 serial
that uses a standard PC uart. It goes through the FTDI USB to serial chip.
When the s/w starts up up it goes and reads a few hives in the registry and starts
walking the serial ports on the machine looking for one that is attached to their
download driver. Its been a while but I believe that theirs is a virtual serial port.
So as long as you could figure out what they trigger on in the registry and mimick
that, you should be able to trick the OceanLog/ACI s/w to use somebody elses
serial port driver.
An alternative route might be to see if you could find an existing USB to serial device
that used the FTDI FT232BM chip. Then go edit the driver .inf files that come with
with the data cable driver from Oceanic/Aeris (which can be download for free)
and trick it into loading their drivers on the USB to serial data cable that you "DIY".
You will need to know the USB Device ID, Vendor ID, and subVendor ID of your device so
that you can insert the proper values in the Oceanic/Aeris .inf driver file to trick
windows into loading it for this alternate h/w.

So while I do think it is possible to create a DIY Oceanic/Aeris data cable,
it will be pretty tough. The mechanical component is one area that there doesn't
seem to be much room for creating something that would work.


Oh, one other thing is that up until now, the same driver is used to run
the data cable for all 3 dive computers. So while they are in fact slightly
different and can be identified by unique IDs, they are interchangeable
because the s/w is currently not checking to ensure the exact same brand
of data cable is being used as the computer.
i.e. you can use an Aeris cable on a Oceanic computer or a Oceanic cable
on an Aeris (which is what I'm doing).
This might be helpful as there often is a price difference between the different
brands.
I don't know if Oceanic will continue have a single driver for all the data cables,
but they do for now.

Hope that helps.

--- bill

[mfalco]

Bill thanks for all the info. I was assuming it was just a wire. It sound like I would be getting into a bigger project than I would like to.

[duhgus]

I posted in the Computer forums that I was looking for a download cable for my aeris 500ai.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/computers-gauges-watches-analyzers/224623-aeris-500ai-download-cable.html#post3432980

Aeris said that the cable "was" a serial cable but the no lorger service or even support the 500ai.
There is nothing wrong with the one I have, so I see no reason to upgrade. (I say "was" because the support group said they have no information on it anymore. Come on... they just empied out a file cabinet one day?! They don't even have the schematics?! I find that hard to believe.)

Has anyone made a cable yet? This is the only computer I've ever owned and used so I don't know which other manufacturers cables would work with the aeris.
I'm willing to try to make a cable if someone could provide me with a schematic from another manufacturer that could possibly work with the 500ai.

Thanks for your time!

[bperrybap]

Aeris/Oceanic did make "real" serial cables for a while. They plugged into a serial port on the PC.
I think at the time the 500ai was shipping they used this serial cable.
Aeris/Oceanic has moved away from using a serial port on the PC in favor of their
USB cable.
While the newer data cable uses a USB port on the PC, the interface to the
dive computer is still serial.

The question on your 500ai is what is the mechanical connection on the dive
computer?

If it is the same as the newer computers, you may be in luck that the newer
USB data cable might work with your 500ai computer.

The biggest issue is that Aeris seems to have dropped support for some of the
older computers in their 2.x software.
I don't see support for the 500ai in the recent 2.x software.

Now the older 1.x software did have support for both the serial as well as
the USB download cable.
It might be possible load the USB driver and use the USB data cable on the
1.x software to get you some sort of the download capability.

Once you get the download working, I'd highly recommend using something
like Scubase or DivingLog to actually keep your logbook since Aeris
doesn't seem to be support this computer in their current s/w.
Those programs are really nice will great features but neither can directly
download the data, you need the Aeris s/w for that. Both of those will pull the data
directly from the Aeris 1.x download database.


PM me if you are still looking for a data cable and interested in trying
a few things and I'll see if we can figure out how to get something working.

--- bill

[jldodd]

Your best bet is to find someone who sells it cheap. The cheapest place I have found is:

Buy Sherwood wisdom usb cable sdk200 with reviews at scuba.com (http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-67/008102/Sherwood-Wisdom-Insight-Download-USB-Cable.html)

Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong but the aeris, oceanic and sherwood cables are all the same so branding doesn't matter. Also, with Sherwood and Aeris (not sure about oceanic), you download the software and drivers from their website because they are not included with the cable. It's a free download and you can get it anytime before or after purchasing the cable.


Hope this helps.

[coflynn]

(I just got one of these USB cables, why I'm bringing back this old thread!)


So while I do think it is possible to create a DIY Oceanic/Aeris data cable,
it will be pretty tough. The mechanical component is one area that there doesn't
seem to be much room for creating something that would work.

Hard, but not impossible. Those pins are called "pogo pins" or "spring pins". For instance Digi-Key - ED8185-ND (Mill-Max Manufacturing Corp. - 0914-0-15-20-77-14-11-0) (http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=ED8185-ND) is one of many available.

In terms of the electronic interface: you need a logic-level interface, which you can buy from FTDI itself: FTDI USB - Serial (http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/EvaluationKits/USB-Serial.htm)

Either the 3V3 or 5V one probably, I haven't checked the levels Oceanic uses yet. You can program the FTDI devices with a USB Product ID and Vendor ID (PID & VID), and even device description. Hence you could clone an Oceanic device pretty easily...

The mechanical part is, as you said, the hardest by far. By the time you get the electronic parts it'll be probably at least $30, so I'm not really sure it's worth it totally!

Regards,

-Colin

[duhgus]

I wrote a nice email to Aeirs a few months back as a last ditch effort to find some support for the Aeris 500ai.

They redeemed themselves! The email had found it's way to someone what I guess actually read the email and that person called me back within 20 minutes of me seanding the email. He said they had an old cable in a retail blister pack and would mail it out to me. I gave them my address and it showed up a week later. No charge!

That gesture will weigh heavily when I do have to buy a new computer. But I still can't forget how they treated my first few requests about info on a cable or the fact that they just abandoned the model I have now.