• Registered: 2008-10-14
  • Posts: 42

Topic: Hirose connector?

Why was this particular Hirose (MQ172X) connector chosen as the antenna connector? (DigiKey links to a drawing and the datasheet.)

It looks like this connector is fairly similar to USB connectors in size -- in fact, the HOWTO in the Files section suggests the use of a "USB to Hirose" cable to make an HF antenna.  However, the advice about picking a cable that it gives isn't very helpful -- "
there
 are
 multiple
 mini‐USB 
cables
 available
 on 
the 
market,
 so
 make
 sure
 you
 buy 
the 
correct 
one.

" sad

The connector looks a lot like this, except this cable isn't keyed and probably wouldn't fit without cutting away the key notch from the PCB connector:

USB 2.0 A Male to Mini-B 4pin Male 28/28AWG Cable - 6ft

Can anyone point me at some cables that are known to work?  Is there any reason to not replace this connector on the PCB with a standard USB connector so that off-the-shelf cables could be used?

  • Registered: 2009-07-27
  • Posts: 99

Re: Hirose connector?

Is there any reason to not replace this connector on the PCB with a standard USB connector so that off-the-shelf cables could be used?

No. The best reason I could come up for using this connector is to prevent accidental misconnections, e.g. in order to prevent someone from mistakingly connecting the antenna to the USB port, or worse, a live USB host to the antenna port. I think this goal is pretty much achieved, you'd be hard pressed to find anything but a proxmark antenna to connect accidentally to this connector smile

Can anyone point me at some cables that are known to work?

I couldn't, for the life of me, find any cable at all. I ended up ordering the connector from digikey and making one myself. For future reference, because this was kind of hard to find out, the digikey part number is H10486-ND