Adding Wi-Fi to my Mac SE/30

[LaPorta]

Pretty nifty idea, pb. I've thought there might be more elegant solutions. That might be one of them.

 

[pb3623]

I'm not back in town until next week. I'll attach a pic. Aside from the 'stub' that the card plugs into, everything else is inside the case - but yeah, maybe a spring-loaded slot next to the brightness knob or programmer switch.

 

[Crutch]

I use the same extender, it's a great and easy solution.  I threaded it through the security slot and use a velcro dot to stick the "stub" card reader thing to the rear of my SE/30 case.  It is slightly annoying when you open the case, though ... that ribbon cable isn't super long.

 

[Bolle]

And here we go, Vonets module from China finally arrived.

The mPCIe port on the module is messed up though, notice how in the socket the upper contacts are shifted to the right compared to the lower contacts?



The VM300 however has the contacts exactly lined up on top and bottom so it will create short circuits when inserted into the mPCIe slot.

Luckily all the signals we need are present on the bottom row of contacts. So to use this you will have to tape over the top row with some capton tape to insulate it.





I had to use 12V instead of 5V to power the VM300, so it seems I will have to go for another run of PCBs.

At 5V the module itself would work and connect to my Wifi but the LAN connection to the SE/30 would not come up.

After a lot of fiddling this is the result:

 

[maceffects]

@Bolle this looks amazing!  If you do happen to sell the board with the WiFi please let me know. I’m ready to pay you a pile of cash  

 

[pax]

@Bolle this looks amazing!  If you do happen to sell the board with the WiFi please let me know. I’m ready to pay you a pile of cash  

Count me in too. Such wonderful work, as always.

 

[adb9001]

Same same..count me in if you sell this board. Fantastic engineering @Bolle

 

[LaPorta]

Is this an all-in-one plug and play wireless solution if you already have the Asante card?

 

[Michael_b]

Is this an all-in-one plug and play wireless solution if you already have the Asante card?

I believe it serves as a replacement for the ethernet daughterboard - you can see the 16 pin connector that leads to the Maccon main board.

 

[LaPorta]

I believe it serves as a replacement for the ethernet daughterboard - you can see the 16 pin connector that leads to the Maccon main board.

Exactly what I was hoping. I have the Maccon.

 

[pcamen]

I’m in if you sell them.

 

[nickpunt]

Same sign me up, want to go all-in on a bolle special maccon  

 

[kreats]

any ability to disable the wifi card if you need to save power to debug or use the wired connection (if the jacks are installed)?

 

[Bolle]

any ability to disable the wifi card if you need to save power to debug or use the wired connection (if the jacks are installed)?

I planned it to be usable that way but I could not get mPCIe connectors that were tall enough to clear the output transformer needed for wired ethernet that's sitting underneath the VM300.

So for now it's only either wired or wireless. Only way to disable the VM300 is to either unplug the module or the transceiver board altogether.

The VM300 is operating off the 12V rail which is usually never a problem in the SE/30 when it comes to power issues.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yeah, I'd love one of these too if you do make some to sell.

 

[daver_cl]

count me in

 

[TimHD]

Same. Count me in. 

 

[JDW]

If it works this will come along with the MacCon clones I am going to build for the SE/30.

It is now February 2021. One year has passed. What is the pricing and availability on this WIFI kit, and is it being made available separately or included with a MacCon Ethernet Clone?  Is the kit 100% complete, including the needed antennae pair?

And just to reconfirm, it is only possible to use WIFI or wired Ethernet and not both at the same time, correct?

Thanks.

 

[Bolle]

I won’t be making any of these because of the problems with the mPCIe connector described earlier in this thread.

I was looking into other DD-WRT based single board access points/routers and if one of those can be used for this but did not find anything that fits the use case.

So far I was only selling the boards as a wired only option included with my MacCon clone/accelerator adapter combo cards. Also my supply of transceiver ICs is slowly getting used up so there won’t be too many more of those coming.

 

[AndiS]

@Bolle

I've just found this thread and did not (yet) read it all. I just want make sure that you aware of this device: Onion Omega2

I've successfully connected to WIFI using a Linux Laptop as a PPP Bridge with the "slirp" package. I am also still experimenting with an ESP32 setup but thinking about that, I might just forget about the ESP and start using this Onion Device with OpenWRT. It should more or less "just work"