[mythtv-users] Digital Devices Duoflex finally working

[Andre Newman]

On 13 Apr 2015, at 14:09, Ian Oliver <lists at foxhill.co.uk> wrote:

> OK, that was a long haul, and I'm afraid that this hardware really 
> doesn't feel like production quality.
> 
> Issues
> 1) Connectors on mini-PCIe card not boxed and keyed. This coupled with 
> the manual not showing the C/T/T2 version of the card at the other end 
> meant that I can to extract the cables a few times, which caused one 
> cable to come apart. I recrimped it, but still clearly had bad 
> connections as not all four transport streams were coming through. New 
> cables ordered.
> 2) It didn't work even with the new cables! I examined the mini PCIe 
> card closely under high magnification and saw that A) there were hand-
> mod wires on one connector due to the pinout being wrong (and this is I 
> guess why keyed connectors couldn't be used), B) the other connector 
> was very badly soldered with lots of joints not looking to have any 
> solder at all. Fortunately, I've got everything at home that I need for 
> surface mount rework, so I could fix it.
> 
> It's now all working, but it was all very frustrating, and I had to 
> spend an extra £20 on cables, which wouldn't have been needed if the 
> hardware was correctly designed and assembled. This isn't cheap gear so 
> I really can't say that I'm impressed.

I feel I should apologise for pointing you in their direction! 

Sorry.

The related card I have is excellent although the drivers took a while to be working properly. 

I had been considering getting a daughter card for mine (it has one expansion connection) but the comment about the mod wires makes me think a very early version of these cards doesn’t much chance of working with a recent one.

Good job you’re able to re-work it although at their prices that’s the last thing you’d expect, it’s not a “how cheap?” special from ebay!

Andre