Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter works well with PowerSDR

K9JRI

I have been concerned that the lack of FireWire ports on new computers was going to be a problem for Flex 3K & 5K owners that wanted to upgrade their computers.  I am running PowerSDR on my Mac mini using Bootcamp and Windows 8.1 but this is the last Mac computer to support FireWire directly.

Apple has released a $29 Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter that works well with either Windows or OS X so I purchased one today.  I plugged it in, removed my FireWire 800 to 400 cable from the built in port and re-connected it to the $29 adapter.  PowerSDR 2.7.2 came up running just fine wit no indications of any issues.

73 - Mike - K9JRI

Neal_K3NC

I can concur with this, it worked for me when I tested it on an Asus G750vx laptop.

73

Richard Serván

As my old SYBA TI Firewire Expresscard dont work on my new Thinkpad P71, can I conect my Flex 3000 firewire cable to USB C notebook conector using the Apple adaptor?

Bill -VA3WTB

3 weeks ago


 Tim - W4TME, Customer Experience 

Official Response



There isn't an alternative solution to using the FLEX-5000 and FLEX-3000 with a non-native Firewire interface.  It will just not work if the 1394 bus is being emulated by a different physical interface.  It will also not work if the FIrewire interface is not 100% IEEE 1394 compliant too.  The only thing I have heard might work is a Thunderbolt interface with the Firewire connector.

Neal - K3NC

I tested my 5000A with an Apple Thunderbold->1394 adapter and it came up and worked for a few minutes. I was using the thunderbolt port from an ASUS ROG 17" laptop. I did not do extensive tests but it came up and worked for everything I did for a while.

YMMV