Introducing SCSI2SD V5.2 - Now assembled in Canada

Last week we took delivery of the first mass-production batch of SCSI2SD V5.2's, all of which are now assembled in Canada (with foreign components), with a new Markham, Ontario-based contract manufacturer. They produce a far-superior quality product, and the quality of their Printed Circuit Boards is a cut above what we've come to expect. We are very pleased with the results.

From a user's perspective, on day one, the V5.2 isn't much different, functionally speaking, to that of SCSI2SD V5.1. It's a derivative design, and anything that works with V5.1 will work fine with V5.2. The most notable change is the removal of the DB25 connector area, as we now have SCSI2SD V5.5, which didn't exist back when V5.1 was designed. The introduction of SCSI2SD V5.5 had the expected effect of cannibalizing V5.1 sales, almost entirely.

The removal of the DB25 SCSI traces from the bottom side of the V5.2 PCB allowed us to build in the ability to add features to SCSI2SD V5.2 in the future. We've moved a few pin assignments around, and as a result, were able to bring out some signals to a SPI header. While the intent of this was to use these pins for SPI, they are true General Purpose pins, and could be used in a variety of different ways. Looking down the road, we've also added a place for SPI NOR flash (in two different footprints), which you can see below, where the silk screened text shows U302 and U303. Once firmware development is complete, and we're happy with the results, this will enable us to, as an example, ship SCSI2SD's with pre-bundled software. Current NOR flash components are available in capacities up to 256 megabits (32 megabytes), at a cost of only several dollars each.

Feel free to ask any questions you've got about SCSI2SD V5.2 here; I'm happy to answer them.

Awesome!  I love my SCSI2SDs (I think I have around 8 of them). Any chance this might make shipping to Canada less expensive?  I’m guessing not as orders are still probably fulfilled from the US but that would be great as I had started ordering them to my hotel when on vacation to the us to save on shipping. 

Personally I dont know how I feel about this. 

Removing that DB25 footprint kinda kills it for me, I liked being able to use it both ways, it made it very versatile. Now I suppose for a permanent installation one way or another it makes sense to do it the way you are doing it. But for the way I use them, it doesn't make sense at all. But I suppose I fall into the minority. 

Also ive noticed the trend of the PCB size kinda staying big. I miss the 5.0 and its small form factor. 

I've always just used the adapter with mine https://store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/idc50f-db25f.htm

Is was there a benefit of soldering on the DB25 connector vs. using the adapter?

I never used the adapter, or even knew it existed. But.... I am the kind of person that doesnt want 32744897589345748974 adapters and dongles around to get lost. 

This is great where the v6 is overkill. However, I do agree with TechKnight, having the 5.0b with the very small footprint made is easier to work with in tight quarters. Good to see things being updated, though.

inertialcomputing said:

The removal of the DB25 SCSI traces from the bottom side of the V5.2 PCB allowed us to build in the ability to add features to SCSI2SD V5.2 in the future. We've moved a few pin assignments around, and as a result, were able to bring out some signals to a SPI header. While the intent of this was to use these pins for SPI, they are true General Purpose pins, and could be used in a variety of different ways. Looking down the road, we've also added a place for SPI NOR flash (in two different footprints), which you can see below, where the silk screened text shows U302 and U303. Once firmware development is complete, and we're happy with the results, this will enable us to, as an example, ship SCSI2SD's with pre-bundled software. Current NOR flash components are available in capacities up to 256 megabits (32 megabytes), at a cost of only several dollars each.

Click to expand...

Excising the DB-25/trace footprint sounds fabulous, can't wait to see what happens in the future. Assuming 10bT is in the works, but the GP pin interface is most intriguing. Open source documentation for outside development?

techknight said:

Also ive noticed the trend of the PCB size kinda staying big. I miss the 5.0 and its small form factor. 

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I found the smaller ones way easier to mount and like using the micro SD cards way better (I know I can use adapters, just not a fan).  I'm also not happy with the move to exclusive use of the larger form factor.

Trash80toHP_Mini said:

Assuming 10bT is in the works

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That would be very cool - adding networking to my Classic would make me forget most of my other gripes

superjer2000 said:

Awesome!  I love my SCSI2SDs (I think I have around 8 of them). Any chance this might make shipping to Canada less expensive?  I’m guessing not as orders are still probably fulfilled from the US but that would be great as I had started ordering them to my hotel when on vacation to the us to save on shipping. 

Click to expand...

We are actually working on securing a Canadian distributor. While we can't do anything about the cost of shipping from the US, this is how we can improve the experience for Canadian customers. More to follow.

Juror22 said:

I found the smaller ones way easier to mount and like using the micro SD cards way better (I know I can use adapters, just not a fan).  I'm also not happy with the move to exclusive use of the larger form factor.

That would be very cool - adding networking to my Classic would make me forget most of my other gripes

Click to expand...

The number one requested feature, when V5.1 was designed by Michael McMaster, was a full sized SD card. LOTS of people hate hate hate microSD with a passion. We don't have anything against the form factor, personally, and find it a lot more environmentally friendly, given that more than half of a modern SD card is pure ABS plastic. While it's trivial to adapt from full sized SD to micro, it's not to go the other way around.

I've considered making a variant of V5.5 in the V5.0b form factor. Would that be of interest?

techknight said:

Personally I dont know how I feel about this. 

Removing that DB25 footprint kinda kills it for me, I liked being able to use it both ways, it made it very versatile. Now I suppose for a permanent installation one way or another it makes sense to do it the way you are doing it. But for the way I use them, it doesn't make sense at all. But I suppose I fall into the minority.

Click to expand...

It definitely reduces versatility, but that versatility had unintended consequences when it came to noise immunity. V5.5 is way, way more portable, and most people are happy to use that.

inertialcomputing said:

V5.5 is way, way more portable, and most people are happy to use that.

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This is where I agree to disagree. The only way that statement would even be remotely true (to me) is if there was a 50 pin header on the PCB directly behind the DB25 footprint or something. 

inertialcomputing said:

We are actually working on securing a Canadian distributor. While we can't do anything about the cost of shipping from the US, this is how we can improve the experience for Canadian customers. More to follow.

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As long as it doesn’t increase the overall price. I’ve been very happy with inertial’s shipping time. I wouldn’t want to pay more to order from a Canadian distributor as my prior experiences have already been good. 

techknight said:

This is where I agree to disagree. The only way that statement would even be remotely true (to me) is if there was a 50 pin header on the PCB directly behind the DB25 footprint or something. 

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It's actually still a true statement, even if it's not for you. The numbers don't lie. The good news for you, though, is that we envisioned this use case (V5.5+IDC50) long ago, and have a couple of very straightforward solutions to it, along the lines of what you're referring to:

Elegant solution, but I dont care for anything multi-piece or dongles. 

I guess I will just have to roll my own from this point forward. I'm used to it, as I typically dont flow with the general sheeple. 

Calling "most of everyone else" sheeple in a place they're looking isn't a great look.

This isn't the best solution, but was it the v5 of the v6 that stored configurations on the card? if the, say, v5.x configurations are all cross-compatible you could move an SD card between a 5.5 for external use and one of the other varieties for internal use. (I'll defer to intertialcomputing/aperezbios on whether or not that'll work, this is a detail that I like but I can never remember which one it is that allows for this.)

The biggest downside I can think of to the 5.5 even as a permanent solution is that it's slower than the other v5 series, but whether or not that matters depends a lot on context. It'll matter a lot less to an SE than to a Quadra 840 or a PowerMac of any kind. (Though, for general data transfer, it'll still be better than most of the other options, if you don't want to involve a network, that's, of course, a separate topic better evaluated to a particular scenario.)

techknight said:

Elegant solution, but I dont care for anything multi-piece or dongles.

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It's soldered to the bottom of the board. That makes it one piece in my book, and to most rational people, I'd imagine.

inertialcomputing said:

I've considered making a variant of V5.5 in the V5.0b form factor. Would that be of interest?

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Yes it would!  

I really appreciate the effort you put into improving the products and still endeavoring to accommodate some of the niche requests.

I've been wanting one of these for ages, but the shipping to Canada basically doubles the price, so I would be psyched to see a Canadian distributor.