Reduction for the parallel port on Brother printers

Brother printers do not use a traditional Centronics 36-pin that you can find on other printers or 2-row 25-pin D-SUB parallel port (LPT) that you find on computers. Instead of that, they use a smaller 3-row 26-pin D-SUB connector. And new printers do not come with a cable/reduction to LPT. You have to go and buy the reduction from Brother under name "PC-5000".

On one end, I understand Brother. If I were them, I would also want to know how many people still need LPT. And by selling the reduction separately you get the count. On the other end, the cable sells for a quarter of the printer.

Since the reduction is nothing else but a simple wire reduction that you can solder from and old LPT cable and a new 3-row 26-pin D-SUB connector for 2 dollars. 

The wiring is simple. Pin 1 on one connector goes on pin 1 on the other connector. Pin 2 on one connector goes on pin 2 on the other connector. And so on. Pin 26 does not have its counterpart and is left unconnected. Ground goes on the ground.

For reference, I include wire colors on my cable (note: they might be different from your cable). And the pin numbers are the numbers on the D-SUB connectors on the cable.

D-SUB 26:

1	black	10	white	19	black white
2	brown	11	pink	20	brown white
3	red	12	azure	21	red white
4	orange	13	red black	22	orange white
5	yellow	14	orange black	23	green white
6	green	15	yellow black	24	blue white
7	blue	16	green black	25	purple white
8	purple	17	grey black	26	not wired
9	grey	18	pink black	ground	shielding of the cable

 D-SUB 25:

1	black	14	orange black
2	brown	15	yellow black
3	red	16	green black
4	orange	17	grey black
5	yellow	18	pink black
6	green	19	black white
7	blue	20	brown white
8	purple	21	red white
9	grey	22	orange white
10	white	23	green white
11	pink	24	blue white
12	azure	25	purple white
13	red black	ground	shielding of the cable

Just note that the 3-line D-SUB is a bit overcrowded in comparison to 2-line D-SUB. You might want to start from the middle row and use a micro soldering iron.