szamot
01-08-2003, 08:00 PM
Yep not so fast sailor. I got more bad news from these guys today. I have been dying to lay my hands on one of their superbly engineered cables much like the one I used for my iPAQ but no go on the AXIM yet, here it is from the horses mouth:
The Dell Axim has become a very difficult platform to engineer cables to! Gomadic has recently completed the tooling for the Dell 40-Pin connector (which has some of the tightest pin configuration we've ever seen) and is prepared to begin production of cable accessories for this platform. We first began development for a USB sync and charge cable (one of our core products for PDAs). The Dell's Power Supply is an unusual 5.4 Volts of DC power which deviates slightly from most other PDA's which require 5 volts. Typically there is a variance of 10-15% when working with DC voltages, however, so we felt confident that the Sync in Charge design would still work fine despite the 5 volts of power provided by USB ports. We were very disappointed to learn, however, that the Dell would not accept any voltage lower than 5.2 volts of DC power before the battery would no longer charge. As a result, we can not provide sync and charge cables for the Dell at this time.
Next we have begun to engineer a cable for serial devices. Since Dell is not releasing the hardware specification for this device, we are forced to take the device apart and follow the traces from the circuits throughout the design to determine the appropriate pinouts. This will take us a few more weeks to determine the full signal map of the base connector. Once we have this information, we will be able to begin production of additional cable accessories (baring no more unusual design gotchas are waiting for us!)
We will add you to our list and notify you immediately when new cables are ready.
Regards,
Gomadic
The Dell Axim has become a very difficult platform to engineer cables to! Gomadic has recently completed the tooling for the Dell 40-Pin connector (which has some of the tightest pin configuration we've ever seen) and is prepared to begin production of cable accessories for this platform. We first began development for a USB sync and charge cable (one of our core products for PDAs). The Dell's Power Supply is an unusual 5.4 Volts of DC power which deviates slightly from most other PDA's which require 5 volts. Typically there is a variance of 10-15% when working with DC voltages, however, so we felt confident that the Sync in Charge design would still work fine despite the 5 volts of power provided by USB ports. We were very disappointed to learn, however, that the Dell would not accept any voltage lower than 5.2 volts of DC power before the battery would no longer charge. As a result, we can not provide sync and charge cables for the Dell at this time.
Next we have begun to engineer a cable for serial devices. Since Dell is not releasing the hardware specification for this device, we are forced to take the device apart and follow the traces from the circuits throughout the design to determine the appropriate pinouts. This will take us a few more weeks to determine the full signal map of the base connector. Once we have this information, we will be able to begin production of additional cable accessories (baring no more unusual design gotchas are waiting for us!)
We will add you to our list and notify you immediately when new cables are ready.
Regards,
Gomadic