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Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:14 am
by firecomm
I'd like to try building my own USB cable to program my Min 5 and I'm wondering if it's a simple USB cable with an RJ-11 on the end or is there more to it? If it's a simple one, does someone have a pinout for building one?

I've seen them on ebay but wanted to try my hand at building one instead of putting out the $$. I have the UPI already, it's just a PITA to use it all and would like to ditch it for a simple cable.

Thanks all.

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 6:15 pm
by SteveC0625
firecomm wrote:I'd like to try building my own USB cable to program my Min 5 and I'm wondering if it's a simple USB cable with an RJ-11 on the end or is there more to it? If it's a simple one, does someone have a pinout for building one?

I've seen them on ebay but wanted to try my hand at building one instead of putting out the $$. I have the UPI already, it's just a PITA to use it all and would like to ditch it for a simple cable.

Thanks all.
Nope, you can't just use a USB cable. It has to contain a circuit and chip that converts USB to TTL. A tiny bit of internet searching yields all the info you could hope to find about this. It is incredibly well documented at this point in time.

This link should tell you everything you need to know. http://forums.radioreference.com/motoro ... rogramming

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 8:07 am
by firecomm
Thank ya sir!

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:17 pm
by Elkland1
I've taken a programming cable for a baofeng radio, chopped the end off, separated the wires, put them in the right contacts on the pager, and successfully programmed it multiple times. Not bad for $5.

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:17 am
by firecomm
Cool.

Any specific baofeng cable or are they all the same? I'm not too familiar with baofeng.
Elkland1 wrote:I've taken a programming cable for a baofeng radio, chopped the end off, separated the wires, put them in the right contacts on the pager, and successfully programmed it multiple times. Not bad for $5.

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:42 pm
by Elkland1
I use the standard cheapo one. Only issue is making sure the drivers are right on the computer. The 20 dollar ftdi i think it is, requires no messing with drivers. It's plug and play

Re: Building a Minitor 5 programming cable

Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:08 pm
by firecomm
Elkland1 wrote:I use the standard cheapo one. Only issue is making sure the drivers are right on the computer. The 20 dollar ftdi i think it is, requires no messing with drivers. It's plug and play
Awesome! Thanks!