Hacking PXA270 internal USB HOST

[afarre]

...now the thing abotu this is that we would have to mod the dell axim x5xx rom to have a driver for the hub in it. but do you guys kinda see what im saying?

oh also, sorry fro ther crappy image quality, i dotn have photoshop installed on this computer yet...

chris

Your proposal states the idea that BT circuit starts from CPU USB HOST. Johnbjones said the same in a previous post but, as I said it does not make much sense because CPU PXA270 has its own BT lines to interface with.

Just in case you were right, internal motherboard lines cannot be cut, but may be it could be taken from the IC's where they arrives.

But..., with your proposal you loose BT, not a good deal.

[afarre]

...USB HOST could only be hacked if pins were wired and with some help from Dell to identify the lines...

As Bigbob said, other way would be investigating from a broken motherboard.
Probably people with broken PDA are not reading the forum any more

[aximbigfan]

Your proposal states the idea that BT circuit starts from CPU USB HOST. Johnbjones said the same in a previous post but, as I said it does not make much sense because CPU PXA270 has its own BT lines to interface with.

Just in case you were right, internal motherboard lines cannot be cut, but may be it could be taken from the IC's where they arrives.

But..., with your proposal you loose BT, not a good deal.

no, you dont get it....

you wouldnt lose bt becouse it would be connected on the device side of the hub alonge with the usb port.

also, with the right tools you could easly cut traces in a mobo. you just need to be very carful not to kill the traces around the ones oyu want to cut...


chris

[Schlachter]

Yeah, I'm a soldering technician and I cut traces, soldering tiny stupid stuff all...and if we ever do figure out some of the stuff on this board I'll definately be adding usb host to the main pins... and if I have enough pins left over I might try to tap into the built in controls. But with a working USB (I mean a true host, not the ratoc) I might be able to also just use a usb controller
If we can figure out the traces, or a way to -get- to the usb host on the proc, I'll definately try to connect the usb to the unused external pins
I'm willing to lose BT if I could get USB... I have TONS of USB stuff

[aximbigfan]

Yeah, I'm a soldering technician and I cut traces, soldering tiny stupid stuff all...and if we ever do figure out some of the stuff on this board I'll definately be adding usb host to the main pins... and if I have enough pins left over I might try to tap into the built in controls. But with a working USB (I mean a true host, not the ratoc) I might be able to also just use a usb controller
If we can figure out the traces, or a way to -get- to the usb host on the proc, I'll definately try to connect the usb to the unused external pins
I'm willing to lose BT if I could get USB... I have TONS of USB stuff

no you wont lose bt... like i siad it will be connected on the di\vice side of the hub...


chris

[Schlachter]

Where are you going to put the hub? I mean... you couldn't possibly think it's going to fit on the inside. You'd have to put it on the outside, if it's on the outside and not plugged in (wouldn't do to have to drag it around everywhere) then you lose BT... which would be on the road, where BT is most used. The only thing I can think of to keep both if you where to "piggyback" the traces, would be to fit a very small relay in there, so when you hooked your hub up, it switches all the wires to your external hub, and your external hub has a spot for the BT. Then you unplug the hub and it switches the path back to the BT. In that diagram you would always have BT, whether you have a hub hooked up or not.

What I'm saying is... if I have USB, I don't need BT (hell you might be able to add one with a hub and one of those cheapo sticks)
So I will cut the traces and try and not care if my BT works not, a proof of concept that the axim can use USB. Then if I decide that I can't do without my BT I'll start to work on that hub idea.

I can't wait to find out more information on this. As soon as I find out if we can find the proper traces I'll be opening my axim to do the usb, external anntena, and maybe my controller adapter.

Did anyone ever find out anything about those copper-looking contacts on the side? And what side were they on? I can't really tell from the pics.


Edit: How many unused pins does the connector have? And how many could I cut and use for something else? (All I want/need is VGA, power, USB; I don't need the serial connection)

[aximbigfan]

Where are you going to put the hub? I mean... you couldn't possibly think it's going to fit on the inside. You'd have to put it on the outside, if it's on the outside and not plugged in (wouldn't do to have to drag it around everywhere) then you lose BT... which would be on the road, where BT is most used. The only thing I can think of to keep both if you where to "piggyback" the traces, would be to fit a very small relay in there, so when you hooked your hub up, it switches all the wires to your external hub, and your external hub has a spot for the BT. Then you unplug the hub and it switches the path back to the BT. In that diagram you would always have BT, whether you have a hub hooked up or not.

What I'm saying is... if I have USB, I don't need BT (hell you might be able to add one with a hub and one of those cheapo sticks)
So I will cut the traces and try and not care if my BT works not, a proof of concept that the axim can use USB. Then if I decide that I can't do without my BT I'll start to work on that hub idea.

I can't wait to find out more information on this. As soon as I find out if we can find the proper traces I'll be opening my axim to do the usb, external anntena, and maybe my controller adapter.

Did anyone ever find out anything about those copper-looking contacts on the side? And what side were they on? I can't really tell from the pics.

hmm... well first of all hubs are quite small. i have seen soem that would be small enough to fit in the axim, secound, you could find a hub thats power requirements meet the raw voltage of the battery, then connect them. as long as the hub is secured properly me see not problem...


chris

[Schlachter]

No way... I don't think there are any usb hubs in the world that would fit inside an axim. Think of it this way... pda are suppose to be small, the smaller one is the more likely people will want it. I'm sure, you could even ask afarre, that there is little to no free room inside that case. I mean... go ahead, proove me wrong. Post a link to the smallest hub you can find, I'll do the same. If we can find one small enough, and find a spot big enough inside the case, I'd be all for a hub. And I think the main battery outputs 5v, which is usb... no problem there.

Edit: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-W...ub-31275.shtml
http://cgi.ebay.com/P27-New-Mini-4-P...QQcmdZViewItem (I don't think the second one would work, the components stand too high.)
http://www.beststuff.com/computers/b...le-keypad.html

None of those would fit...

edit2: The battery outputs 3.7v... oh well, I'd probably make an external power supply for anything usb I wanted to hook up

[afarre]

You are right, there is no way to fit a USB HUB inside the Axim.
If it was right that BT takes USB HOST 0, it could only be useful just to see if there could be some sort of twin lines to identify USB HOST 1.

(Btw, your second link is almost the same Aximizer has inside )

[aximbigfan]

well, insiead of putting the hub inside, why not coat it in hot glue and hot glue it to the back of the axim wit the leads goign through a small hole i nthe back of the ax to the hub?


chris

[Schlachter]

Yeah, that was my idea like 2 posts ago. Make it external at attach it whenever you need it. I wouldn't hot glue it. I wouldn't want to ruin the outside of my axim. Somehow we're going to have to just -not- use the traces to the BT. We're going to have to find the other host and use it.
I think I figured out why they would hook BT to USB instead of the pxA270's bt.
cheaper... I bet it's alot cheaper to use a usb BT host instead of making something special for the pxa270... just a thought. Hookup a bt usb stick, give it drivers, and you're done. Instead of tons of R&D, just use what you already have.

Anyways, on another note, I PM'd Afarre with alot of questions and he asked me to post them here so he can answer them here.

"Hi, You're doing a great job, and if I had enough money I'd almost copy everything you've done here.
I wanted to ask you something...
If we were to get usb to work natively on the axim, where can you find drivers for these things?
I was pretty stupid, I thought the ratoc card could only do like... thumbsticks. After seeing what you had done, I'm simply amazed.
With the ratoc card, you're able to run a 160gb hdd (as if it was a cf card right?) and run the touchscreen at the same time? Do you think CE .NET drivers will work with the built in usb host (if we get it to work)?
And are you able to just use an CE drivers? Or do you have to find CE 5.0 drivers? Do the drivers have to be geared for the ratoc card?
Thanks, sorry to bug you, but I'm fighting the urge to open up my x51v, find those BT paths, and try this USB thing out... I wouldn't be too upset if my BT stopped working, I never use it."
There just really isn't that much information about that ratoc card. Maybe since afarre has some experience with it he can enlighten us all :P

Has anyone taken a look around some of the linux sites? They usually get alot of the hardware information and/or where/how it connects to the proc.
I'm going to go take a look and see if anyone on the linux projects can help us.

[mikelspikel]

Just a question:

Have you got any evidence that states the BT chip is connected to the USB Host? Until now, I was pretty sure it was connected to the BT UART of the PXA270 but maybe I'm wrong. The reasons are:

- The system accesses to the TI BFR6150 though a COM port (COM5)
- I can use a terminal emulation program to communicate with the BT chip and use standard Windows CE API calls to configure the COM port.
- The driver of this port (BTUart) is managed by a dll called BTUartDMA.dll. By changing this driver with Serial32.dll (the driver that manages the standard serial port of the axim COM1), the BT still works.
- As bigbop states previously in this thread, he has information regarding the TI and it has not an USB interface.

That's why I still believe the TI BRF6150 is connected to the PXA270 through the BT UART and not USB host.

[afarre]

That is exactly what I was meaning from the begining of this thread, but without investigating it.

BT taking one CPU USB HOST does not make much sense when CPU has its own BT interface.

May be Johnbjones can clarify this. He was who first mention BT at post #5.

Also we must keep in mind PXA270 has two USB hosts.