New Workbench Pegboard and RS-232 Extension Outlet

Feburary 21, 2004

I had to drive home from Home Depot with pegboard outer armor and a lance made of 1"x2"x12' poplar. It was raining. It never rains. I also had to get into and out of the car "Dukes of Hazzard" style.

Here I am, politely skipping over all the boring particulars of creating a 4'x40" wooden frame made of 1"x2" poplar.

Why don't we skip all the way to the end, where there's already a fully made pegboard? I have much more boring stuff I want to get to, starting now...

Alriiiight. I decided to run an extension of my com port from the PC to the pegboard, like a built-in wall-socket. I've been coding on BASIC Stamps and PIC microcontrollers, and having RS-232 cables all over my keyboard and mouse has been driving me nuts. I could just run a longer cord to the workbench, but I'd always be losing it behind the desk, or knocking things over. I wanted a dedicated COM socket right on the workbench itself.

I bought some DB-9 crimp and solder connectors (opted for all solder connectors in the end), in both male and female because I couldn't remember the ends of the cable. I never can. I traced this male connector on the back of a socketless electrical wall plate.

Drilled a pilot hole big enough for the Radio Shack Nibbling Tool.

I nibbled out the hole and the socket fit very well. The nibbling tool in the photo above is amazing. You stick the little nub (far right in photo) up through a hole in thin material, push it forward so it can byte a small piece of material, then chomp it down and it punches out a perfect byte. You can byte out any shape.The tool is $10 at Radio Shack, but they had it on sale for $5 when I discovered it. Here I've used a Sharpie marker to mark the dots for the socket screws.

Back view, showing how close to the socket the quickly nibbled socket hole is.

I love tapping things. Taps put threads inside drilled holes, so you can use machine screws in them. Feels very professional.

Here's a closer look at the tapped holes, and my very sloppy job of making the socket hole. I would've gone slower and made it pretty if you'd ever be able to see it.

Screwed in with 2 #4-40 screws. This all worked so perfectly.

Front view. This is gonna be awesome.

This was so easy to do, I decided to quickly throw the female socket on the side of the electrical box. Now I don't need to cut up one of the RS-232 cables. I can use it like a real extension right into this adapter box, with the ends intact.

The best way I could think to knock a hole in the pegboard was to perforate it with small drill holes. It was still ultimately stronger than me.

I drilled the holes bigger, hoping that would help. It didn't, really. I like the patterns in the sawdust, though. I never touched it, so that all formed naturally - probably because of harmonic vibrations in the table from the drilling. Still, it looks creepy, like it's trying to spell something upside down. "Jarcy?"

The rest of the perf was easily destroyed by needle nose pliers. That's some thick pegboard, and heavy, too. I chose their thickest variety, hoping to avoid ugly sagging pegboard in the near future.

Here's a test fit - looking good.

PIC Programming is going to be so easy on this thing. It looks specially designed for it, because really, it is. I put the socket on the bottom of the plate so that I could add another com port above it later, and whatever else I feel inclined to add.

Now the crappy part. I have to solder wires between the 9 pins of both connectors in the electrical box.

I labeled the wires with sticky labels so I'd remember which was which, since I wouldn't be able to see their other ends while I soldered the opposite side.

The back side connector is in place. Now I just have to figure out the front side. A bunch of the labels fell off, and some switched wires somehow while I jammed and pushed them through the hole.

Despite all my labeling, I still had to test each one via a cable I ran around to the back connector. I'm glad I did, too, because I had pins 1 and 5 labeled in reverse.

Soldering the front half. Radio Shack's "Helping Hands" really do as their name implies.

Honestly, the soldering of all these wires couldn't have been easier. I've never soldered this well before. I owe it all to a little tin of stuff I found at Radio Shack today called Tip Tinner and Cleaner (part number 64-020D). It's like solid metal in a tin, and when you jab the iron into it, it bubbles and turns into molten liquid metal that cleans off the tip. Soldering with the tip in that state was extremely easy. It took about 2 seconds to get the solder to flow nicely where I wanted it.

It's so nice to finally have space for tools. I keep finding more little screwdrivers and odd electrical devices to put up here. Soon, all my tools will be at arm's length. I especially like that 32lb mallet up there, in case I get attacked by a cartoon coyote while I'm trying to work.

It's not very spacious, but it's so much more room than I've had up 'til now. That's the cleanest the workbench surface has been in months.

Finally. Here's the big test. I was kinda worried I'd fry my stamp. They're not cheap. I held my breath and hit the test button in the BASIC Stamp editor...

...success! It found the Stamp, and nothing caught on fire. I know it's just a glorified extension cord, but it was still nice that everything fell into place so easily, especially with all my previous disasters with solder.