How to Make a Foot Pedal

How to make a foot pedal for Sing Around:

See the paragraph below, under You could test this first, if you're doubtful if you can do this before you spend any money.

Special note: Laptop computers don't have a serial port.If you plan to use SingAround on a laptop and a desktop with the same foot pedal, you need to know how to do it and the extra cost.

Go to Radio Shack You need:

You need this no matter which method you use below	Tape Recorder Foot Switch, Radio Shack Part # 44-610	$5.00	Any on/off foot switch will do, even one that turns your Xmas lights on and off.
Method 1: Cleaner and cheaper, easy to transport, but harder to do	RJ-45 -to- Serial Connector, female 9-pin side.	3.00	RJ45 is ethernet. They're a little hard to find. Radio shack has 25-pin only, for $5.00. Other electronics stores have them cheaper. Internet is about1.50, but you'll pay shipping.
	Ethernet Cable	6.00	Pricing is all over the place, from 4.99 to $20.00. Find the cheapest you can, or get the network guy at work to make you one for free.
Method 2: Easier, expensive, looks bad, harder to carry from place to place	Serial cable, also called a modem cable. Female end for the type of port you have (usually 9-pin)	12.00	Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. You can get them for as little as $6.00. Get the cheapest. No shielding if possible. (that's what costs money). You need the FEMALE end. Don't worry about what the other end is.
Total Method 1		14.00	Or less if you can get a free ethernet cable
Total Method 2		17.00	Or less, depending on the cost of your serial cable

Disclaimer:

MiniSolve provides these instructions in good faith, to help you save some money and time. We make no warranty, expressed or implied, that they'll work. If you get sloppy, you won't hurt your computer, or burn out your serial port, but we can't pay for it if you do. We're programmers, not engineers. These instructions are based on our experience, and have not been thoroughly tested for all possible mistakes you could make.

General Info:

Your computer needs a serial port. All computer come with at least one. It's either a 9-pin or 25-pin MALE connector on the back of the computer. It's possible your modem is attached to it. If that's the case, you'll have to unplug the modem when you use SingAround. Or get a serial switch. Or buy another serial card for about $10.

You don't have to know which serial port your computer uses. The program will figure that out for you, but check out the back of the computer first to know if it's 9-pin (by far the most common) or a 25-pin.

Theoretical How to:

You need to connect the wires for Data Terminal Ready and Receive Data on your serial cable. DTR sends out 5 volts continuously. Receive Data sends it right back in through the serial port. Sing Around will recognize those 5 volts. Your foot pedal will connect those two wires.

9 Pin Connector: connect pins 2 and 4.

25 Pin Connector: connect pins 3 and 20

Go to HowStuffWorks.com. It will tell you how the pins are numbered. They're left-to-right when you're holding the connector with the wider side at the top. When you're working with a FEMALE connector, they're right-to-left. Look on the back of the connector, where you insert the wire. There will be numbers there. They're really small numbers. Get your glasses.

You could test this first:

Before you buy and cut up a foot pedal, try this:

Locate the serial port on the back of the computer. Plug a serial cable into it.

Take an opened paper clip and press one end to DTR and the other end to Receive Data on the MALE end of your serial cable. (see above for those pins) It might take two people to do this. On a 9-pin that's 2 and 4. On a 25-pin, it's 3 and 20.

Now execute Sing Around, click on the menu choice "Options" and select Com Port setup. Touch the two ends of the paper clip to the correct two pins (2 and 4 or 3 and 20) on the serial cable. Watch for "Got It!!" in the setup box. If you don't see these words, then, touch and release, touch and release again. Still no action, change the com port in Sing Around. Try again. You'll eventually find the correct com port.

The program will tell you when it's found the serial port with "Got It!." If it recognizes it at all, no matter how momentarily, then it will work when you create your foot pedal. When it finds it, press "Save." It will remember it from now on.

Detailed How -To Method 1:

The adapter looks like this:

By "adapter," we mean a DB-9 to RJ45 adapter. Female on the Serial-port end. Go to Radio Shack or get one from the internet, about $3

These are hard to find commercially, but all over the internet very cheap.

If your adapter has the wires already in place, do not mess with it. Only if they're disconnected, do this.

1. With a flashlight, maybe, and looking closely into the open end of the RJ-45 side of the connector, find the two wires that connect to the middle two slots. They'll be color-coded.  On a 9-pin adapter they're yellow and orange. Connect the white wire to pin eight. The laptop USB won't work without white connected.

Note: Check your connector first with a flashlight. Don't rely on this color scheme. Connector colors may vary.

2. Push the middle two wires of the RJ-45 side into the slots for the 2 and 4 pins of the serial side..

3. Cut off one end off of the ethernet cable. Make the wire long. It's better to have a long wire so other people in your group can use it. Peel back the rubber and strip the ends of all the colored wires (not the wires with a white stripe. We've never come across an ethernet wiring that uses the white-striped wires). And don't strip the white wire. It's ground, and it's never going to be a connection. Don't connect the foot pedal just yet.

4. Plug the etherenet wire into the adapter. Plug the adapter into the back of your computer, or, if this is a laptop, plug the USB-to-Serial adapter into the computer first, then the little adapter you just made into the serial end of the USB device.

5. Test it now before connecting the wires to the foot pedal: Execute SingAround. Go into Options (on the menu) and select Com Port setup. Touch red and orange wires together. No response? Try red and blue. Nothing? orange and blue has to be it. No? Change the com port in SingAround and repeat. If you get no response, try a different com port. If you still get no results, your wiring of the adapter is incorrect. Sorry. Verify that the two inner-most wires of the RJ-45 side of your connector are attached to the 2 and 4 pins of the serial side, or 3 and 20 of a 25-pin adapter. If this is a laptop, make sure the white wire on the connector goes into pin 8.

NOTE: We have seen ethernet cables with ALL solid colors. I don't know where they come from. If that's the case, strip all wires except the white. Execute SingAround. Touch all the wires together at the same time. Don't worry, you won't get electrocuted. (Remove all breakables from the room first.) No luck? change the com port in SingAround. It will work eventually. Now you just have to figure out which wires made the connection. Exit SingAround and come back in. You have 27 possible combinations of eight wires.

6. Once it works, shove all the extra wires back into the connector and clip it together, or just cut them off. Don't worry that the extra wires might touch each other, there's no power on them.

7. Cut the end off the foot pedal. Use the above method of making one wire shorter than the other. Splice the foot-pedal wires to the ethernet-cable wires. It doesn't matter which foot-pedal wire goes to which ethernet wire. Execute SingAround and make sure it works. Tape it up. You're done. Have fun.

Detailed How -To Method 2:

1. Cut one end off the serial cable you bought. You're going to use the FEMALE end, so leave plenty of wire.

2. Strip off the outer covering, about 2 inches. Be careful not to cut the wires within.

3. Carefully cut away the shielding if it's there. Use a utility knife with a NEW blade and slice along the length of the wire, not too much along the width of the wire, because you might cut the wire. Cut it, twist it, pull it. It will come off. Remove the foil if it's there.

4. Strip wires Yellow and Orange. 9-pin or 25-pin are the same.

5. Test this now: Plug the female connection into the back of your computer. Execute SingAround. Get to Options, Com Port Setup. Touch the two stripped wires together. If you don't get "Got it!!!" on your screen, change the com port number. Try it again. You'll get it when SingAround sees the voltage on the wires. When it finds it, press "Save." It will remember it from now on.

REPEATING NOTE from ABOVE: If all of your wires are solid-colored, or you can't find Yellow and Orange, or they don't work, strip all wires except the white. Execute SingAround. Touch all the wires together at the same time. No luck? change the com port in SingAround. It will work eventually. Now you just have to figure out which wires made the connection. Exit SingAround and come back in. You have 27 possible combinations of eight wires. Take the yellow in one hand and fan out all the others in your other hand. Run the yellow over the tops of all the other wires until you see "Got It!" on the screen. Try orange, and then other colors successively. Once you see "Got It," figure out which two wires made the connection and segregate them.

6. Once you've got it, cut the foot pedal wires and splice them to the correct two wires of the serial cable. It doesn't matter which foot-pedal wire goes to which serial-cable wire. See above for a clean way to splice wires.

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