From: FyberOptic on
Hi folks. Maybe I'll try this here since the electronics.basics
newsgroup is fairly inactive these days apparently.

Anyhow, I want to do something fairly simple, but I want the advice of
someone who actually knows more about this stuff to make sure I don't
do something wrong that I'm not taking into account.

Basically I want to connect an SD card to my PC's parallel port. The
biggest reason is that I want to familiarize myself with the protocol
for curiosity's sake, but also because I want to eventually be able to
implement an SD card reader in a different hardware project which
happens to have a parallel port as well.

First of all, since my reader will be detachable from either the PC or
the other device I want to eventually plug it into, I figured that
using two AA batteries would be a fine power source for the SD card,
with some capacitors to smooth the power. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Second, I decided that for safety's sake I would use a 74HC241 octal
buffer which I have laying here already. I should be able to power
this with the 3v battery power if I understand properly. I then want
to connect the data out pin of the SD card into the buffer, and then
from there into the parallel port. I assume this should be plenty of
output voltage from the buffer when running at 3v to trigger a TTL
input, right?

But here's the bigger part I'm concerned about. I then want to run
lines out of the parallel port into the buffer, and from the buffer
into the SD card. Now, normally, I know TTL output isn't quite high
enough to trigger a CMOS input. But, since I'm powering the buffer at
3v, does this change things? Will the TTL outputs be adequate for a
CMOS part running at a lower voltage? I have a chart that shows the
various voltages for an HC part, but only when powered at 5v, so I
don't know how that scales or anything.

On the flip side, could the TTL outputs be too much for an HC part
running at a lower VCC? Maybe resulting in too much current going
into the SD card, perhaps?

I'd certainly appreciate any input anyone can offer on the subject.
Especially any ideas on the design in the event that they've
constructed something similar before.
From: Jan Panteltje on
On a sunny day (Thu, 7 Jan 2010 08:09:10 -0800 (PST)) it happened FyberOptic
<fyberoptic(a)gmail.com> wrote in
<09d6df9b-6d23-4f3f-9462-17bdefac60eb(a)22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com>:

>Hi folks.

Depends how you want to drive the card.
1) Google:
Simplified_SD_Host_Controller_Spec.PDF

2) You need no buffer on the par port, most par ports these days are 3.3V.
If in doubt use some 100 series resistors.

3) Here are the connections:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/wap54g/to-linksys-wap54g-forum-2.txt

4) Here is some C source code for a module to drive a SDcard,
from Linux system, you will need to adapt I/O addresses etc for a PC:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/wap54g/sources/

5) That software is released under GPL license, and do not violate that license.

6) There is still snow today, and it is still freezing.
We can blame this all on Bill SLoman, who's wild actions against global warming caused this cooling.
From: FyberOptic on
On Jan 7, 1:25 pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 2) You need no buffer on the par port, most par ports these days are 3.3V..
>    If in doubt use some 100 series resistors.
>

Na I'm getting closer to 4.3v or so on high, and will possibly get
that or even closer to 5v on the other device I plan to connect it to
(the parallel port there is replicated through general I/O pins). So
my original question still stands on whether the HC buffer running at
3v will be okay for shifting the voltage on all the SD lines.


>
> 6) There is still snow today, and it is still freezing.

We got our snow earlier tonight. Again!

From: Jan Panteltje on
On a sunny day (Thu, 7 Jan 2010 21:23:12 -0800 (PST)) it happened FyberOptic
<fyberoptic(a)gmail.com> wrote in
<68b2a594-9546-447b-aafd-db6cf62ac89a(a)q4g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>:

>On Jan 7, 1:25�pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> 2) You need no buffer on the par port, most par ports these days are 3.3V=
>.
>> � �If in doubt use some 100 series resistors.
>>
>
>Na I'm getting closer to 4.3v or so on high, and will possibly get
>that or even closer to 5v on the other device I plan to connect it to
>(the parallel port there is replicated through general I/O pins). So
>my original question still stands on whether the HC buffer running at
>3v will be okay for shifting the voltage on all the SD lines.
>
>
>>
>> 6) There is still snow today, and it is still freezing.
>
>We got our snow earlier tonight. Again!
>

Use a resistor divider, was -12�C last night...

From: Bill Sloman on
On Jan 7, 7:25 pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> On a sunny day (Thu, 7 Jan 2010 08:09:10 -0800 (PST)) it happened FyberOptic
> <fyberop...(a)gmail.com> wrote in
> <09d6df9b-6d23-4f3f-9462-17bdefac6...(a)22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com>:
>
> >Hi folks.
>
> Depends how you want to drive the card.
> 1) Google:
>   Simplified_SD_Host_Controller_Spec.PDF
>
> 2) You need no buffer on the par port, most par ports these days are 3.3V..
>    If in doubt use some 100 series resistors.
>
> 3) Here are the connections:
>    http://panteltje.com/panteltje/wap54g/to-linksys-wap54g-forum-2.txt
>
> 4) Here is some C source code for a module to drive a SDcard,
>    from  Linux system, you will need to adapt I/O addresses etc for a PC:
>    http://panteltje.com/panteltje/wap54g/sources/
>
> 5) That software is released under GPL license, and do not violate that license.
>
> 6) There is still snow today, and it is still freezing.

> We can blame this all on Bill SLoman, who's wild actions against global warming caused this cooling.

Jan Panteltje is actually quite sensible on circuit design and Linux
programming, but he really doesn't have clue about global warming.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen