On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 11:55 PM, Colton Conor <colton.conor@gmail.com> wrote:
Freddy,
So are you saying if you order enough from Fiberstore.com they will give you a programmer? That seems like the best solution.
Yes, the magic number seems to be 30000 USD for fiberstore. I looked into this compatibility magic some time ago. It's all based on a simple I²C EEPROM. Which is read and values like vendor/product ID is compared to check compatibility. Some vendors apparently spend some extra effort making their optics incompatible. E.g. HP/3COM protect their 10G SFP+ modules with proprietary validation algorithms which require a micro controller to emulate it (a basic EEPROM is not enough). To prevent EEPROM modifications it's possible to set a password/code sequence for write access. Apparently that's what e.g. flexOptix/solid optics are doing to implement their own kind of vendor lock-in. Their programmer only can program their own optics and their optics can be only programmed by their programmer. If you buy optics from china they are either not password protected at all or they will provide you with the password if you ask for it so you can use any generic programmer. If you prefer super cheap optics over easy re-programming usability have a look at the following generic EEPROM programmers (I've no experience with any of these): http://sfptotal.com/ https://dimiks.com/en/programmers http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/tinout2018/product-detailUvTmnWbPvLVh/... http://www.optics-home.com/pro_details.asp?id=105 http://www.reveltronics.com/en/shop/52/12/chip-programmers/accessories-and-a... Or if you prefer the do-it-yourself approach using a Raspberry Pi: http://eoinpk.blogspot.com/2014/05/raspberry-pi-and-programming-eeproms-on.h... If someone has time to start a nice open source/community supported generic programmer tool+database which provides the same usability as e.g. FlexOptix we most likely would support it.