Hi all,
I did a brief search through these forums to see if I could find a thread similar to this one and I didn't see anything that looked remotely close (to clarify that I do not intend to "repost" or what-have-you)

Okay.... the problem was a common one: running a high quality Wifi USB dongle on the GP2X.

I bought the EXT/USB cable from ARTaylor.... measured the output at 3.3v from my GP2X. So I made a small circuit using one resistor, one diode, 1x USB Type A female socket, 1x USB Type B female socket and 1x 4xAAA battery holder (along with a pack of 4 2500mAh Energizer batteries).

Got a little over 5.1v which is ample, and I made it measure (With the addition of a few more components) to output a stable usable 500mA. This means that even the most power-consuming USB devices can run on it, including those Host-Powered USB hubs.

I feel that a little more work and I could make some 4 port 500mA hubs ready for selling (just to cover costs) if anyone is interested?

The tests I performed are:

1) Will it power and run a USB Optical Mouse (YES)
2) Will it power and run a Wifi dongle (YES)
3) Will it power and run a laptop external hard drive (YES.... AND THAT'S MY FAVORITE PART!!!)
4) How long will it power my USB Controlled LED mood lamp (5 hours at full draw)

If anyone is interested, I just want it to be known. Or if you have any other ideas/problems/suggestions that would be great too!

When my stupid Digicam comes back from the shop (being repaired AGAIN) I will take some snapshots of the thing running in various situations.

I'm really hyped up though because now I can take 160GB of music/movies/games etc. with me wherever I go and use them on my GP2X.... and everything fits in just one pocket (excluding the GP2X itself of course).

Finally I'd just like to say I'm not plugging my wares in here or anything! I just wanted to make sure y'all are aware this is possible..... and if you would like I can post a detailed diagram + intructions of how I made it work, and how to make your own of course.

That's all for now and I'm off to bed.

Regards,
Simon J Stuart

Nice one! Now if only GPH would do it.

Yeah, we're STILL waiting for the new BOB.

</grrrrr!!!!!>

If this can be used in conjunction with the tv out cable then i would buy it in a second.

im interested in the circuits you use to filter the power (mostly he diode) could you please post us a parts list ?

It isn't news, nor probably financially viable. For us, not you. Don't feel badly, it is nearly impossible to find stuff on a forum, especially without google searching (site:gp32x.com/board This link says 145,000 hits, a lot.)

If you want to make your own, here it is, my mod was moved directly to the FAQ section where no-one ever goes: DIY USB Thread. I realize that it is unfinished and I have yet to make a circuit with the protection IC in it, but it is functional, I copied mp3s to and from a memstick, and also used a mouse and PS1 pad with USB yesterday.

I just used the battery pack directly because I measured it within spec (to get some Idea of what I mean have a look at a few PC USB ports, hmmph). I suppose you have added a boosting cap because you are using a wifi stick. 4xAAA 1,000mAh NiMH pack. It powers my IBM optical mouse with cool blue scroll wheel, that should draw some energy. I have also used it with that 4-port hub to copy from one USB stick to another.

See here for a commercial USB hub, while AAA it should still be useful.

Cyberpower battery USB hub.

I see that you aren't talking about USB host, but just so everyone knows, Artaylor makes the USB host cables.

And I have sourced a termination Integrated Circuit, $0.79 at digikey.com I believe (note, $5 Handling charges apply to orders under $25, so order a couple, or some other stuff with).

Here is a pic of the termination IC, Go large.


And again (Large Size)


I would like to see your circuit, so do put up some pics sometime, and I am surprised you didn't build your own USB cable, but I guess you couldn't find instructions (schema reside in gp2x.wiki, see sig for link). Maybe now you will simplify your circuit and remove the 2 unnecessary USB connectors , less bulk.

Nubie does your design allow for adding a tv out cable. Also could it be done by someone with very limited electrical skill?

Yes, just connecting 5 wires. Or optionally for a standard Yellow/Red/White A/V cable just 4 wires and a small ceramic capacitor.

For TV ^^. If you can solder without burning yourself or melting chips you are a good candidate to do it yourself. I suppose I need an Instructables account and a Macro Camera (I keep borrowing one).

For USB host it is 5 wires for the data and ground. 2 more for a power box like you see.

i would be interested if it chewed through 2AA rather than 4AAA. i realize it would not last as long on 2AA if you bumped the voltage output of them up to the same 5v you're getting out of 4AAA.

but then i'd only have to carry AA batts!

edit: yeah, where's the official BOB? i thought gamepark's strength was hardware, heh

Never was, the GP2X is full o stupid crap still. (USB can be internal for a start, only $5 more to the consumer)

GCDKraven, I'm interested in how you designed it, and how big it is. Please post details, and pics when you can. You might want to think about helping out the wiki article on it, since last I looked, the wiki was very unclear on several areas.

Good job making it work!

I've just done the exact same thing although its still a beta version. . Mines slightly different. I used 4 AA batteries instead of AAA. Being able to power an external Hdd is definetly nice althougth mine is only 40GB its more than enough for me at the moment. It is interesting that 2.5" Hdd have a similar foot print to the gp2x. When I work out if you can use picasa web album in linux I will post some pictures of my rig.

Nice! I was thinking of doing something just like this yesterday. It's nice to know that I can build it now, knowing that it will have a decent battery life.

EDIT: Now, I just need to find a EXT connector. Stupid GPH for removing the pins that I needed.

I shall post a full schematic as soon as my digicam is repaired and sent back to me!

I would like to point out that I will be altering my design to work as a "dongle" which instead of requiring a seperate cable for the EXT/USB conversion, will work strait from the EXT. (corrected)

Also since it seems quite important, I may even be able to include an S-VIDEO or Composite socket on the dongle case as well wired up for TV-OUT.... though I haven't really played with TV-OUT yet.

Will get back to you on this

Thanks for all the replies so far as well

Ya an ultra detailed guide would be awesome. Especially if it detailed how to add the tv out to it.

Um, I just added the S-Video to mine (and then played it for a couple hours ).

It was easy because one of the video lines has a nice fat solder pad (think Xbox mod-chip silver squares).
It was only 3 wires becuase I cheated and soldered the grounds together(and across one of the "audio" grounds as well). I don't think that hurt anything, but it is hard to be subjective on the 84" projected image I call my TV (I only view VGA through it normally, from an HD tuner, Dreamcast, PC and VGA modded Xbox)

I figure you can either solder the sound at the EXT too, or just plug into it up top because the speakers don't shut off unless you plug something in there anyway.

The Samsung cable I got is looking not good for people not comfortable with small soldering. I have been doing it for years and had my share of soldering a PS1 9000 series IC all the way across connecting like 20 pins (ick, I had to go buy some de-soldering wick before I gave that guy back his PS1).

If a large source of these could be turned up it would be great for a production line though. The only way to connect this plug properly is to make a circuit board up and have surface mount components soldered onto it. Then a mini-switch for A/V to S-Video and a tiny capacitor to change it, and the USB termination IC could all fit nicely on that board and solder pads for all of them could come off of it. (4 wires USB, 7 for proper audio and S-Video).

Another person on these forums has got ahold of a Samsung USB cable for the e810, it looks to me just like the TV-Out cable from GPH, so it is all set for soldering individual wires onto the pins, not a circuit board.

This might be a better hobbyists EXT connector, and we could still mount the ~1.5x2.2mm Integrated circuit on a board small enough to fit inside the EXT shell once we closed it up.

All GPH needs to do is add a ~$2 worth of components to the TV-Out cable and sell it for ~$10-15 more than they are now, the profit margin is HUGE, I wish they would too, I would buy one.

if i build one, do i have to use american coins?

Whoops! Accidentally posted incomplete! read message below!

What were the american coins used for?

I can go into a little detail on how to build one (still not got my camera back). Here's the ingredients list:

Ingredients:
1) 4x AA (or AAA) battery holder with +/- wires
2) if battery holder doesn't have a switch on it, get a simple switch (1 or 2 pole, 2 position - on/off)
3) 5.1v Zener diode
4) 1.3w Zener diode
5) 100ohm resistor
6) USB Type A female (standard USB socket)
7) USB Type B female (smaller USB socket such as used on printers etc.)
8) A USB cables (Type A to Type B - both male)
9) A small amount of stripboard
10) A multimeter (voltometer)

Amercians can get all those things from Radio Shack, but for the British, I recommend www.rapidonline.com because that's where I got my order from and everything worked brilliantly. As for other countries, I'm affraid I've no idea what your best supplier will be.

Okay until I get my camera back you'll have to use some iniative and look up a pinout for both a female type A USB socket, and a female type B.... http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml

Without a camera I can only give you a diagram image:
http://www.rustybin.com/usbhub.bmp
If for some reason this image fails to show, send me a message and I'll sort it out (I'm hosting it on my server)

I think this about covers a basic battery powered USB hub! Check the voltages carefully before connecting it to a device, and I don't take any responsibility for any damage that may occur (covering myself leagally).

Enjoy

More later

Regards,
Simon J Stuart
Grey Cascade Designs

After a little more thought I've decided I could most likely build on most of the BoB features onto a pocket sized portable system.... the only question is how many batteries are people willing to use?

GP2X = 2 (or 3 with the life extention mod I've seen and practised)
USB = 4
TV OUT thankfully wouldn't require any additional power
I have no idea about Serial or J-TAG though!

However I have built the hardware and am working on software for the GP2X to use the serial connector on the BoB to create a wireless GP2X to GP2X communications system (like text messaging on the GP2X). It's actually rather simple!!! This could have the potential to replace the Wifi requirement for creating multiplayer games perhaps?

The thing is the circuit comprises of just two simple components! A 9-pin Serial connector, and a 1MHz ocsilator crystal and this could VERY EASILY be built into the GP2X!

Am I being ambitious now?

The only problem I could see with the serial thing is that Linux puts a lot of text out on it automatically and you'd need to make sure you had stopped that before you could send your own data,

Do you have any idea what the purpose of that is? I'm just wondering if attempting to stop it may damage the system in any way, or stop it performing properly.

It's just one idea, but it is simple enough to make it run on USB! However that would make it harder to embed inside the GP2X!

Just host a game over the USB host, then let anyone who wants to plug into your hub and enable USB network (over the USB B-Mini on the side) in the options menu. I think if the software on your machine is working properly (set up a server) then any other machines will see you as a network and just work .

Only the host system would need the EXT adaptor cable. If you are really into the USB host you could put it inside next to the SD reader, there are Digg and hackaday links, they are poorly terminated though, so I would use the Artaylor

American coins because I live in California. Machinist's ruler on the Metric side for the rest of the world .

thing is that depending on the size of the antenna.... with the serial wireless device I've built, you could play games with people wireless around 1KM away! This is with a small wire antenna.... though a socket mount would also allow people to connect their own custom antennas of various size.... the longer the wire, the higher the range (untested maximum distance but we've achived 3.08 miles on our first test) To achive that we used a 23MHz crystal instead!

No, don't use USB host - it will be much harder to set up. The text on the serial line is fairly easy to surpress (somebody on #gp2xdev should be able to give more information) and it's only there for using the serial cable for debugging

Good to know thanks

does anyone know if JTag requires additional power? If it doesn't then I will draw up two circuit designs for both stripboard and PCB to create a pocket-sized, battery powered breakout board featuring:

-TV OUT
-5v USB
-HQ Audio
-Serial/wireless interface
-JTag

anything missing?

oops, browser glitch, I double-posted

I didn't know you meant wirelessly, is it the GP32 wireless link? There should be plenty of those around.

I was just thinking local GB style link-game.

It's not like the GP32 wireless as I can tell....
It's my own completely custom wireless protocol I'm writing (with a few of my coding buddies) specifically for the GP2X. We're going to make a set of library files for the SDK to allow games developers the ability to make games utilizing the wireless protocol. The device itself could be built into the GP2X very simply (as it is literally one component) or can be attached via the Serial port on a BoB.


Also I'd like to announce I'm beginning construction of a fully battery powered Break-Out-Board (or Box) for everything as previously mentioned!

My only query is as to whether the JTag requires external power?

Also I will build in a mains adapter jack for people who need to unbrick their GP2X (where it cannot turn off because it'd break the unit) which will also be able to power the GP2X (like a docking station but not)

I am welcoming all ideas and discussion on this and in fact.... if you wish to discuss this with me directly here's my MSN address:

kraven _AT_ greycascade _DOT_ com < scrabled to avoid yet more spam bots!

This should be entertaining

Wow, thanks for the information! I can't believe I didn't find this sooner! I am also working on getting a battery powered USB Hub + Wifi together.

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=35121

I have the CyberPower battery powered hub, a wireless USB stick, and the necessary resistors and capacitors. I would have used the small integrated circuit that Nubie has posted about but it's way too small for me.

My question is, if I have the battery powered hub, do I need the 5 volt VUSB line going into the hub? It's clear that the GP2X won't be able to provide the power as it's 3.3 volts. Even if it was 5 volts, I don't think I would want it to drain the batteries like that. Is the 5 volt VUSB line into the hub needed for setting up the initial connections between the two devices? I was thinking of just building it without and trying it to see if it works or not but I thought I would ask here first. Thanks.

you only need the 2 data lines... and ground maybe
since your hub is powered, you don't need to connect the VUSB line

Thanks for the help!

You really need to connect ground as it is what the data line are measured against. Although you could probably get away with not connecting it you may get strange problems and for the sake of one wire its not worth leaving it disconnected

Well, I just tried putting it together (with the ground and no 5 volt external power) but including the powered USB hub and it didn't seem to work. I think the 5 volt line is necessary because I checked my soldering and other lines and it seemed to be working. I'll investigate it more tomorrow.

hm... strange...
my bob works fine with the powered hub and only data lines and ground connected

I think that some Hubs need to see the voltage to start the hub, and some just assume since you plugged them in that you want to use them.

If you have a powered hub, see if a momentary 5v starts it working, then you can just put a button in the plans.

Or if it needs just a signal the 3.3v might activate it. The question is whether the hub draws power from that line or just uses it as a signal.

Well, I think I goofed a little with the soldering with those little tiny wires in the Samsung E810 connector. I bought a USB Samsung cable this time which was a lot cheaper. Should be ready to tackle it again early this week.

You can clean off any solder with some De-soldering braid from radio shack. I have bought 2 USB e810 cables so far and they both only have like 4 pins, and they don't even have the plastic set up for any other pins.

I have seen the black USB e810 connectors with a big bulge in the middle of the cable, those seem to be different, like they have a Serial to USB converter in the middle bulge. But if it is just USB on one end, the cable, and then the Samsung connector it is probably the wrong one.

I'm having no luck trying to get a hub added to my GP2X.

I bought a powered USB hub from SVP (http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=501) - It looks to be identical to the one Richard Taylor is selling on his site, so I guess it's proven technology.

I've tried it with and without a filter circuit (my resistor values were a bit off those on the wiki -http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/USB_Host_BoB_Schematic - might be the problem) , but no luck.

I've been looking at the boot-up output through the serial cable, what should I be looking for when a USB device is recognised? I'm using version 2.0 firmware and have enabled USB host, human input and mass storage, is there anything else I need to do?

I also seem to have lost shell access via the serial cable since I upgraded to 2.0 firmware, is this normal?

Any ideas chaps?

Maybe troubleshoot the hub and the GP2X connection seperately, IE make sure the USB adaptor works on individual devices.

Then take your hub to a PC and see how it works. Make sure to unplug the power to the USB port if you run it without power on the GP2X (front panel ports on most PC's have 4-5 wires going into a jumper block, consulting the motherboard manual you usually pull off the red wire to disable the power to that port).

Once both are verified working then procedd to see how they are hooked up differently in the GP2X configuration.

Don't try to troubleshoot the host adaptor through a hub your first try, always use just a single USB device.