Saturday, 27 October 2012

Hackberry A10 - Extra USB Ports

As discovered by Adrian on the miniand forums, the Hackberry has an on-board USB Hub (Genesys Logic GL850G) resulting in the board providing up to 6 usb ports. 1 port is used by the wifi module, another are 2 exposed by the double connector next to the HDMI port. Out of the remaining 3, 2 are available through solder pads on the pcb. 

 One is located on the rear of the board as shown below.
This one seems better suited to a on board module such a bluetooth or another wifi. The difficultly arises from sources a module that matches the dimensions of the 4 pin layout. 





The second port is located on the front side of the board near to the SD card and is easily recognised by the tracing lines for a Type A USB connector.You could try to populate this one with a Type A connector although because the solder pads aren't holed there nothing to keep the connector in place apart from soldering the connector housing to their solder pads.


After some deliberation I decided to see if it was possible to solder a 0.1" 4 way pcb header to the four usb pads. This solution allows for a plug-n-play style usb port connector, use it when you want! The problem of using a stand vertical pcb header like this is that there is little support for it once solder due to the lack of through holes for mounting. To overcome this I used a right angled version of the connector which first was soldered the wrong way (ie the pin without the plastic support the soldered) and after successful soldering I prised off the plastic supports from the vertical pins.





The next stage was to create a pluggable usb connector, this required a 4 way 0.1" right angle header, a Type A usb connector and a small strip of vero board. I soldered the 4 way header and Type A connector onto the vero board. 








Once done I could plug the pluggable usb connector onto the pins on the hackberry using a jump cable made from two 4 way 0.1" female connectors. 







Last step was to test it worked, for this I plugged in a usb stick. 

When I don't require the usb port I can easily remove the jump cable.


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10 comments:

  1. Adi28 October 2012 at 18:03

    Very good stuff like usual Jas !

    had a question popping up again, can we use the same location to solder a bluetooth UART module to support Bluetooth functionality out of the box ?

    I needed advice on something like this will work>>

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/UART-TTL-Bluetooth-Module-slave-master-and-3-3V-5V-/130545269839

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jas30 October 2012 at 02:18

    Hi Adi,

    That ones a serial Bluetooth module, won't work without on usb port unless you first connect a usb to ttl serial adapter. It's easier just to use a usb bluetooth module or alternatively you could connect the serial Bluetooth module to the serial port.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Adi1 November 2012 at 21:12

    Got it , I got mistaken that it can be used as serial port too !

    Talking about bluetooth, I believe if we connect the same module I mentioned from ebay to the mini serial port on the board we have bluetooth support out of the box ?

    I know the script.bin, mentions about using the bluetooth from UART, would it work or we still talk about compiling the drivers there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jas2 November 2012 at 08:58

      You could try the serial port, you would have to fix the fex file as the serial port is configured for debug output. However you will still need to configure android for bluetooth because its currently not active.

      Delete
    2. Adi3 November 2012 at 14:58

      Any help on editing the fex file to use the bluetooth module?

      Delete
  4. estrellaFUGAZ2 November 2012 at 07:46

    Hi! Any idea when will be able stock ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jas4 November 2012 at 11:37

      Hi there, not sure what you mean by "stock"? I made this using off the shelf components.

      Delete
  5. TonyQuest6 February 2013 at 21:15

    Any idea if this will support a USB TV tuner? The goal is over-the-air live broadcast video. If so, can you suggest supported devices / software?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jas10 February 2013 at 01:12

      Hi, unfortunately haven't got a USB TV tuner to try this out. I guess the main stumbling block will the kernel drivers for the USB TV tunner you are planing to use.

      Delete
  6. Unknown15 February 2013 at 10:20

    Jass, got any information about witch USB connector (on the A10) is the hub connected to, i.e. Host 1, 2 or OTG?

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete