Batboard

I have a real Motorola RIB but I want to do the 3 switch mod used for flashing new firmware.

I am a bit reluctant to mod my "precious" Motorola RIB so I was planning to build a homebrew RIB using the Batlabs schematic.

Although building a RIB is relatively inexpensive , I noticed that the Chinese RIB's are very cheap!!

I've researched the archives and, in general, later versions of the Chinese RIB's seem to get OK reviews.

But I have a few questions:

- do all the Chinese RIB's on Ebay come from the same "factory". The pictures all look identical BUT the prices vary by up to 100%!!!

- are the Chinese RIB''s circuit identical to the real Motorola RIB - so its easy to work out where to add the switches for firmware updates?

Thanks

I have a RIB from KawaMall that worked out excellent for me. No problems at all.

The problems all along have been the piss poor RIB that Motorola made and everyone else copied. If I designed that RIB, I would have been fired....

There is a new schematic coming soon to bring the Motorola RIB design up to RS232 standards.

I have not seen the Chinese RIB yet, but guess that there are simply a copy of the Motorola 'design'.

Thanks for the feedback

I often wonder why Motorola did not just use a simple RS232/TTL interface built around a MAX232 !!! Also why do they need to keep using different "RIB to Radio" pin outs for different models - I have a box full of diiferent homebrew leads.

At least they use a "standard" RJ45 socket for mobiles so you can use old computer network cables!!! You would have thought that Moto would have used an RJ45 socket with slightly different pins or something!!!

g8tzl2004 wrote:Thanks for the feedback

I often wonder why Motorola did not just use a simple RS232/TTL interface built around a MAX232 !!! Also why do they need to keep using different "RIB to Radio" pin outs for different models

The so-called engineer who designed the Motorola RIB knows nothing about RS232.....
Different radios have different connections to the radio's data buss.

I bought one of these Chinese RIBS. It has worked great, maybe even a bit better than the real M RIB.

Mark