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Compact Flash card pinout

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R

Remove _ for valid address

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm trying to wire up a socket for a Compact Flash card.

I thought it would be easy to determine which is pin 1, however
the more I delve the more confusing it becomes. Google leads to
various diagrams, however none look like a real card, and they
seem designed to mislead (e.g. one shows two rows of pins with
the bottom row labelled "Top"!) I downloaded the official PDF
Compact Flash spec (v4) but I can't read it (it's "encrypted"
with some acrobat scheme that my acroread can't decrypt; I wish
people didn't do things like that...especially for a public
spec...)

Looking into the holes in the card, with the main (Canon) label
on the top side, the groove in the plastic on the left is
narrower than that on the right, like this:
.. ________________________________________________________
.. | _|
.. `-. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O |
.. .-` O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O |_
.. |________________________________________________________|

The card has a triangle (which I would normally guess means
pin 1) on the top left as drawn above. The mating socket also
has a similar triangle, but it's on the other end so they don't
correspond when mated. Crazy huh?

As pin 1 is a ground, and ground pins on the socket are longer
than the rest, it has to be either bottom left or top
right. Can someone please put me out of my misery and reveal
which. As it's going to be bastard to hand wire anyway, I don't
wish to have to do it twice!

Thanks.

Mike.
 
M

martin.shoebridge

Jan 1, 1970
0
SNIP
Looking into the holes in the card, with the main (Canon) label
on the top side, the groove in the plastic on the left is
narrower than that on the right, like this:
. ________________________________________________________
. | _|
. `-. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O |
. .-` O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O |_
. |________________________________________________________|

The card has a triangle (which I would normally guess means
pin 1) on the top left as drawn above. The mating socket also
has a similar triangle, but it's on the other end so they don't
correspond when mated. Crazy huh?

As pin 1 is a ground, and ground pins on the socket are longer
than the rest, it has to be either bottom left or top
right. Can someone please put me out of my misery and reveal
which. As it's going to be bastard to hand wire anyway, I don't
wish to have to do it twice!

Thanks.

Mike.
Look carefully at the sides of your compact flash. There are two grooves. 1
is fat, the other is thin. Pin 1 is on the fat side.Look at the CF module
with the fat grove on your right. Pin 1 is in the top right hand corner.
 
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