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This shows you how to get a fibre channel system running on a PC without having to pay for a large FC enclosure\array. What you need: Commen sense - some knowledge of what Fibre Channel is and what its for. Google if you dont know already. Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter - Obviously you need this, it connects your PC to the FC drives or any other fibre channel devices. There are alot to choose from but if you are reading this you probably want a cheap one, Like the QLA2100 or any other 1 GB/sec HBA. They either have copper interfaces or Fibre Optic. Copper is easier for this project or if you have a fibre optic one you have to use a Media Interface Adapter (MIA) to convert from optical signals to electrical (this is what I did). I used a Emulex LP8000 with a Stratos Lightwave MDB9-8-1 MIA.
Pic of MIA:
Hard Drive - Any FC-AL drive will do. Seagate 9 gig and 18 gig ones are very common and pretty cheap. They have 40 pin SCA2 connectors on the back of them cables - you can just use UTP CAT5 cables for soldering etc but use STP CAT5e for any length. T-card - This is an adapter that goes from DB9 > SCA2 (a 40 pin connector on the back of FC-AL hard drives). You dont have to use DB9, you could use any connector you with eg. RJ45. You can buy these from places in the states: http://sierra-cables.com/ but they are expensive for what they are and were not feasable for me to buy so this guide shows you how to make them. You will need a SCA-2 connector:
This is probably the hardest part to get (well it'd be easy if you lived in the states). You can also get some of the above companies to send you free samples if you pretend you are a company looking to buy a large amount but want to try a few first.
I had to get mine off a dead Dell Power Vault 650F backplane with a blow tourch:
You will also need: - Blank copper circuit board
DB9 Pinout:
How to make the T card Use a laser printer to print this document (as A4 paper size) on the glossy side of the photo quality paper. I found that its easier to remove the soldering points and corresponding pins from the FC-SCA connector that aren't used. This is a diagram of my design, the black dots are the points where the FC-SCA connector goes:
Click here if you want the Raw BMP file (you will need to resize it before printing) Clean the copper clad board with steel wool or very fine wet sandpaper. Dry the board thoroughly. Make sure that the board is clean and free from fingerprints. Place the photo paper face down on the copper clad board. Use masking tape to hold the paper in position. Don't use vinyl tape. Place the board on a flat surface. You will be using a very hot iron, so don't use the dining room table. I use the back of an old telephone directory. Use a hot clothes iron to transfer the track pattern from the paper to the copper board. Don't be afraid to use lots of heat and pressure.
Allow the board to cool. Don't be tempted to lift the paper. Put the board in a container full of warm soapy water.
After about twenty minutes the paper will begin to dissolve and disintegrate. VERY Carefully remove the paper from the copper board. Rinse under a cold tap to remove paper residue.
You may need to touch up any broken tracks with an etch resist pen. I use a fine Staedtler laundry marker. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT for this whole process. Heres an example of one that didn't work:
Etch the board in a Ferric Chloride etching solution. You can buy the etchant in liquid form or as anhydrous Ferric Chloride powder. Follow the instructions. NEVER add water to dry Ferric Chloride. Don't get any on your clothes. The guy at Jaycar told me that I needed an air pump, a etching tank and some other stuff but I just bought the etching powder, put some in a jar, added boiling water, rocked that jar back and forth for 5-10 mins until all the copper was gone and it worked a treat:
(Mine looks slightly different because I didn't have the right power plug and had to reverse the orientation of the 5V and 12V points) I think maybe you need the tank and everything if you are making big PCBs but Ghetto Style is always better IMHO! It may need a couple of cuts with a craft knife afterwards just to separate a couple of the close tracks but BE CAREFULL when doing this:
After etching, rinse the board under a cold tap. Remove the etch resist (black ink from printer) with some steel wool. Dry the board. Use a 0.8 or 1.0 mm drill to make the holes for component leads. I found 0.8 mm was alot better than 1.0 mm.
After drilling:
Now obviously you need some soldering skillz and its pretty obvious where to put the connectors etc. Heres how my final attempt turned out:
You can use the supplied circuit diagram or you can easily design and make to suite your needs from the following pin outs.
You can loop as many as 126 FC devices together really easily. Basically each device has 2 loops each having an IN and an OUT port made of two connectors, a positive and a negative:
Each device also has to have an unique ID (just like with SCSI) which is set by having jumper like this:
To select an ID connect the pin or pins to 5V and the rest to ground. eg. say you want an ID of 42, you would connect pins 13, 15 and 37 to 5V and all the others to ground (32+8+2=42). So you could make a T-card with any number of connector on it all in a loop and this would work. But because its a loop if one device fails or if one slot is not filled then the loop is broken and nothing will go..... I went from knowing nothing about FC to knowing everything you see here (and more) purely from searching the internet. You can just follow my instructions and make a T card or if you want to know more here are the resources I used: A crude T card design: www.overclockers.com/tips681/ Different Parts: www.ebay.com and www.trademe.co.nz And most of all a big thanks to Kelly Park who gave me the original diagram for the T-card. I was about to give up when he helped me out :)
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