Astounded EEG

My SD to CF adapter arrived today, I think it actually took less time to get here from Australia than it did for the company Down Under to actually ship (or as they called it, "dispatch") the darn thing. (Shipping was "10-14 days.")

[And yeah, I mean an adapter that allows an SD or MMC card to fit into and interface with a CF slot. Is the correct terminology "CF to SD adapter?" "SD to CF" makes so much more sense to me since its generally the SD card going "to" the CF slot...]



Anyway, I've got it, and I love it. First of all, yes I guess I'm kinda nuts for shelling out US$38 for the thing, but I think it was worth it since it's pretty much doubled the value of my MMC and SD cards (I don't own any CF memory)--basically I now have two SD/MMC drives (OK, "slots"...). I also only have to buy a CF to PC card adapter if I want to use my SD memory in a laptop, as opposed to two adapters (one for a CF wifi card) or one of those multi-adapter things.



So, out of the box, I had one problem that seems to have been my fault and which I've resolved. The adapter wasn't registering in my Axim when my MMC was in it, and when I removed the card and adapter, the MMC needed to be formatted in order to be used in any of my other devices. A little while and a few formats later, it suddenly started working perfectly. I'm pretty sure now that I was only having trouble because I had removed the card a little too quickly after I inserted it, and it didn't quite have time to register. (when the memory card registers, it shows up simply as "CF card" in file explorer.)

The only issue I have with the adapter is that it has a teeny tiny lip that forces you to use a fingernail to remove it with, although I'm sure it won't be a big deal as I "break it in" and the adapter becomes easier to remove.





As you can see from the photos, this isn't one of those huge adapters that stick out of the top of the axim and add 20% more bulk to it (it also only accepts SD and MMC as opposed to 6 types of flash memory). The cards, once inserted, lie flush with the edge of the CF adapter, enabling it to fit in the CF slot and stick out no more than a regular CF memory card.

With this adapter I can now transfer my photos on the MMC directly to my Axim for previewing, which, by the way, is a joy with the picture viewer in WM2003, it's almost exactly like the XP windows picture and fax viewer. I can of course transfer movies etc. to my axim as well, all without removing my other SD card, whose mp3s are more or less constantly being played.

Now if only I can find a way to watch my .avi files, either with Dell's WM2003 patch-in-the-making or with a PMVP patch, or both. Then I'll really be cruisin' .

suemccartin

I got what's probably the earlier model of that adapter, it's longer than the one you have and doesn't fit inside a camera designed to take CF of anything like that. I got mine because I'd just spend 80 bucks on a firewire cf reader (that was pre usb 2) and didn't want to lose my investment when I got my new HP850 camera that uses SD cards. It also works great on my archos jukebox 20 when I offload my memory cards to its built in hard drive.

Astounded EEG

yeah my only gripes are:
1. the lip that you use to take the card out of the slot with finally broke and now I am using smeg36's tape solution.
2. you have to take it out of the axim when you soft reset, otherwise it takes forever to boot.
3. i'm not sure how many CF cameras it would be compatible with, since it's a type II card....

it sure is getting a lot more use now, as i've basically made it my hard drive with a 512MB SD card, and I keep a 32MB MMC in the SD slot with all my text docs and pdfs on it, like a floppy disk.