Panasonic CF-29 and CF-WEB273 Dock

[NSPD]

I am in the process of looking for a used/refurbished Panasonic CF-28 or CF-29 Toughbook. I already have a CF-WEB273 docking station installed in the vehicle, and it is supposedly able to support the CF 27, CF-28, and CF-29.

I have seen several references to the fact that the CF-29 "Mk III" will not work in the CF-WEB273 dock. Does anyone have any experience with this, or have any other input that would be useful to me in looking for a toughbook? The only functions of the dock being used are the power and USB connections.

Thanks!

[resqguy911]

I am using one with a CF30MkIII right now. The reason you are seeing those comments may be the older model toughbooks didn't have both WWAN and GPS passthru, so the single port in the dock wouldn't line up with anything. I removed the RF passthru from the docking connector and everything else was unaffected. But since my internal antennas have a good sight picture out the windshield, theres no worries about not having external antennas.

[NSPD]

I don't think that my dock has RF-Passthru at all, not to mention the fact that I won't be using it anyway.

I just don't want to end up buying a laptop that's not going to work in the dock I have.

[resqguy911]

any links to those references so I can see maybe what the deal is?

[NSPD]

Here is the one in question:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=293921

[NSPD]

So does anyone have an answer to the question.... is the CF-29 mkII the only one that does not work correctly with this dock?

[SCFR]

The only thing that I know of with these docks are the cfweb273 will not support USB2.0 but the cfweb2732 will support USB2.0 they were built for the CF29 and the cfweb273 was built for the cf27 and cf28 but will work for the cf29 you just have a slower USB on the dock but it still works just fine .

[GlennD]

Most of the CF 29s on Ebay are H revisions. It looks like a :o load of toughbooks came out of lease from GTE.

You can buy a reburb from overstock.com or a rough one from Ebay. I purchased an Ebay one and it cleaned up to used status and works fine after cleaning it up. The worst part was cleaning up the glue left when the GTE tag was removed.

I reimaged it with the restore disks and I am typing on it now.

[NSPD]

One other question while we are on the topic.

If I connect a USB hub through the dock for the purposes of running a couple of external sound cards, will I still be able to make use of the side USB port on the computer for a cellular wireless card, or would another type of card be my best bet?