Making a USB cable to connect the Balloon to a PC
The standard method of connecting a Balloon to the world without adding any extra hardware is using USB to connect it to a Linux PC and running a network conenction over this cable.
This page describes how the cable is wired up, (one is normally supplied with your Balloon). See [USBNetworking] for details of how to set it up and use it.
You need:
- A USB cable with a type A connector (the big rectangular one) at one end, bare wires the other
- 4 pin molex 1.25mm pitch PCB header plug
- pre-crimped leads for the molex plug
- stuff to join them together (soldering iron, solder, heat-shrink)
Possible sources for the parts are:
- Molex plug - Farnell 998-489, 58p for 5
- pre-crimped leads - Farnell 889-593, \a35.80 for 10 socket-socket leads - enough for 5 USB cables.
A Plug to A Plug cable - CPC CS03076 (3m) \a32.12 (chop it in half for 2 cables - you can buy an A Plug->bare-ended cable but it costs more)
The wiring is a simple 1-1 mapping, and normally the wires are sensibly coloured -
- GND - black
- DATA+ - green
- DATA- - white
- POWER - red
Top view of the socket on the balloon board:%%% 
Looking into the USB plug on the PC end of the wire:%%% 
Check and double-check the above - if you get the power the wrong way round you'll almost certainly let the smoke out.