Tim's Canopy Information Page - Firewire power

I've been playing with a Motorola Canopy wireless broadband system and I'm going to share some of the info I've found.

I have a mac ibook that happens to have a 12V firewire port and since Canopy will work on 12V, it seemed like an option to not have to carry anohter battery for remote surveys. Firewire can provide upto 45 Watts (Canopy takes about 7.5) at up to 40 Volts. Canopy won't have a problem with that.

Start with a good firewire cable. Put a small nylon tie 85 mm from the end or 3 inches from the base of the jacket.

I use 85mm from the end.

Remove shielding adn cut the data lines so they wont short. Add shrink tubing if needed. Leave the power lines long. The power lines go to the square end of the firewire connector. Check with an ohm meter since cables in the same batch may be different.

Both wires need to fit in. There is room for one to curl but the short one needs to be 16mm from the outside of the nylon tie. Add heat shrink to keep it from shorting. On my cable, the white nad black from the canopy power supply connects to the white line of the firewire cable and the black goes to the red and green. Be careful that you don't over heat anything. Notice that the RJ connector end has been removed from the plastic body.

Snap it back together and its done.

The furry helper in the pics can be found here