Fire Wire 1394

[wd5jko]

In the Flex radio Yahoo group (long gone I think), I copied a post that might be useful. Here is what I copied:

"I have a Dell XPS15. It has USB-C (AKA (Thunderbolt 3).
I have a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter from Startech (around £110
direct or £76 from Amazon.co.uk)
Then I have an apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter (Apple branded,
£25 on Amazon).
then I have a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter (branded Neet, around £5).

Ridiculously expensive in total (£105, or $132), but cheaper than a new PC.

It was a gamble, but I tried it and it worked perfectly to run my Flex3000"

I don't recall who did this conversion. Just wondering if anyone here has gone down this road?

Regards,
Jim
Wd5JKO

[ke9ns]

I heard that you could do it with adapters, but until you actually do it or see it in action, its all a gamble.
I am assuming he stated the FireWire 400 to 800 adapter backwards, since the the Apple adapter looks like it provides an 800mbit type connector.

So: USB-C port -> Startech Thunderbolt adapter -> Apple FireWire adapter -> 800 to 400 adapter -> 400mbit cable -> Flex-3000/5000

But since USB-C is slower than Thunderbolt, I am confused how it works.
Apple provides USB-C, but its also Thunderbolt3

I would like to know the Startech Part# and what type of USB-C port the Dell XPS15 has?

Darrin ke9ns

[wd5jko]

Laptop:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp ... 570-laptop
"7. Thunderbolt™ 3 (4 lanes of PCI Express Gen 3) supporting: Power Delivery, Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps bi-directional), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps)"

Then I find this:
https://www.startech.com/media/products ... asheet.pdf
"The Thunderbolt 3 to 1394 FireWire adapter connects your FireWire peripherals to your Thunderbolt 3
computer".

[ke9ns]

Nice. That explains why that adapter works!

My motherboard has a USB-C port but its only USB 3.1 Gen1 (5 Gbps)

Darrin ke9ns

[VK6JJJ]

If your motherboard has a PCI Express 1 x slot, this is the best bus type for a Firewire host controller since it does not share interrupts with other motherboard peripherals.

[ke9ns]

Correct, All Desktops will have 1 or more PCI Express slots, and any unused PCIe slot will work (from the small x1 to the large x16 slot).

The Thunderbolt Firewire solution is really only needed for modern laptops that dont have a 1394, DV port or express card slot.

All the new laptops have the USB-C port, but you want one where the USB-C port also supports Thunderbolt 3, so then its possible to get FireWire using a "Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 USB-C" adapter, AND a "Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire" adapter from Apple.

Darrin
ke9ns