Apple TV2 serial port, part 2

This is a follow-up to part 1, which details the proccess of actually breaking out the serial port and power supply pins. This post describes the construction of a simple board that protects the Apple TV’s delicate circuitry and can provide 5v/3.3v level translation.

I used an Analog Devices ADuM1201 iCoupler, a convienient little chip that works up to 25 Mbps at between 2.7 and 5.5v. The only other components are two 0.22μf bypass capacitors - I used 0402 as I have quite a few laying around. The circuit board is single sided and doesn’t require any drilling, which makes fabricating it yourself very easy.

The board in place: