1. Odds are, that if there was room for a USB host, Dell would of populated it and it would of been included as a feature of the 50/51.
2. Given that it is NOT a feature, the ODDS that there is room to route the traces to TESTPOINTS on the PCB is 50/50 (if the PCB is designed for ICT, the pads would be there), however, I do not see enough testpoints on ETHER side of the PCB for ICT.
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[FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=Blue] - Mark0 (The Technologist)
my thought is that they probably wanted the profit potential of selling an addon that was capable of having a USB Host function (a product that would surely be very popular to those on this thread)... so it's my thought that a good financial move would be to wire the pins on the PDAs main connector from the PXA270 chip direct... then put the root hub into the expansion system...
imo, such a system would probably sell, and sell fairly well, but only to people who wanna be able to access something like a pen-drive, on their PDA, on the fly. though, the additional bulk would probably make the product a little less appealing. but i digress. i'd buy one.
it's likely that they figured the venture too risky for something with so many problems already (just poking around, i'm sure you can see the multitude of issues people have with their axims).. nevermind the driver headaches, marketing to a consumer base thats already aggrivated, etc etc.
so imo, there's a decent chance going that they included pcb leads for at least the host header. which is good for us...
i'm crossing my fingers that its on the sync. connector. though, considering i havn't used my warranty so far, and i don't think i will (considering all the potential i have to fix the ax myself), i might just forego my warranty to put a USB connector on it... because i'd LOVE to have usb HOST function on my AX!
Are you talking about the pins on the bottom of the axim? People have already done pinouts on those, and a few are unused (doubtful that they're usb though, someone would have found that out by now). So... unless you buy a ratoc card, you're going to have to open your axim to get usb...
Are you talking about the pins on the bottom of the axim? People have already done pinouts on those, and a few are unused (doubtful that they're usb though, someone would have found that out by now). So... unless you buy a ratoc card, you're going to have to open your axim to get usb...
hey! leave my hopes and dreams alone... they didn't do anything to you...
Are you talking about the pins on the bottom of the axim? People have already done pinouts on those, and a few are unused (doubtful that they're usb though, someone would have found that out by now). So... unless you buy a ratoc card, you're going to have to open your axim to get usb...
There have been a handful of users, including myself, who have been mapping out the sync connector pins. All of us are still wondering what the 4 pins around the USB client are for. Pins 18, 19, 20 & 24 appear to be connected to something. That is what I'm going to find out. For an external USB host interface, you need D+, D-, enable/disable and overcurrent detect - hmmmm - 4 pins.:approve:
They might also be a JTAG interface, used to flash the firmware during manufacture.
As for mbloof's post about testpoints, have a look down the side of the PCB adjacent to the CPU area. I'm going to find out what those are for.
I'm going to pull apart my E750 expansion port to see how Toshiba set up their USB host interface. I think it was done inside the PDA though because I have a host USB cable that plugs directly into the sync connector. The cable has a built-in 5v jack but I don't recall if there were any interface electronics in the shell housing.
1 VCC Red +5 VDC
2 D- White Data -
3 D+ Green Data +
4 GND Black Ground
So grab a multimeter and test for a +5 VDC... :P If there isn't one, then either they want an external power or they're not usb...
And I agree about the test ports down the side, but still... I really don't think they'd put usb there... why would they need to test something that doesn't get used? I admit that there may be things on the board that aren't used (IE: USB?) My company makes 3 different electronic speedodometers, and while each one has different features and what not, each version has a part of the hardware that's unused. One doesn't use the oil light, one doesn't use blinkers, and one doesn't use the backlight. But every single one we ship can use all of them, the programming is what turns them off. Hell, they even have tempurature control... but that's completely unused and never will be... but it's there....
Anyways, I'm going to go test those pins to see if I can get a 5 volt.
And sorry Mystik... I wish/hope just as much as you do that this process is just as simple as "the hardware's there, we just never knew how to talk to it" and we connect, compile/sign some drivers, and off we go!
What we really should look at is how likely is it that the manufacturer would make some sort of external (outside the proc. on the board somewhere) connection to that usb...
My biggest question though, above all else... Where would we be if afarre's curiosity wasn't so easily perked?
(edit, 5 minutes later...) Didn't find any power wires... but after testing those four pins my axim still works! So maybe they're just extra... designed the connector and the pins then pulled something out of the hardware that was going to use them right before they were ready to be produced... rather then redesign it they simply don't connect to anything.
Has anyone looked at where the pins go on the board? If they have traces made for them... then I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's a usb connection... too convient that it's four pins, the proc. has usb hosting capabilities, AND hpc has been putting usb in alot of thier devices. HPC does make the axim right? Or did they just design the electronics?
1 VCC Red +5 VDC
2 D- White Data -
3 D+ Green Data +
4 GND Black Ground
So grab a multimeter and test for a +5 VDC... :P If there isn't one, then either they want an external power or they're not usb...
And I agree about the test ports down the side, but still... I really don't think they'd put usb there... why would they need to test something that doesn't get used? I admit that there may be things on the board that aren't used (IE: USB?) My company makes 3 different electronic speedodometers, and while each one has different features and what not, each version has a part of the hardware that's unused. One doesn't use the oil light, one doesn't use blinkers, and one doesn't use the backlight. But every single one we ship can use all of them, the programming is what turns them off. Hell, they even have tempurature control... but that's completely unused and never will be... but it's there....
Anyways, I'm going to go test those pins to see if I can get a 5 volt.
And sorry Mystik... I wish/hope just as much as you do that this process is just as simple as "the hardware's there, we just never knew how to talk to it" and we connect, compile/sign some drivers, and off we go!
What we really should look at is how likely is it that the manufacturer would make some sort of external (outside the proc. on the board somewhere) connection to that usb...
My biggest question though, above all else... Where would we be if afarre's curiosity wasn't so easily perked?
What you have, is the user connection signals that are NOT at the sync connector pins. Refer to the schematic of the Intel host adapter that Afarre posted at the beginning of this thread. What 'might' be available on the X50v is what I've shown. Since there is no signal conditioning circuitry in the Axim that I can see, an additional interface would be needed. All of this is pure speculation at this time. You won't find 5v anywhere on that connector - it's all 3.3v signals.
That's what I figured... I didn't think there was enough room in there to up the voltage... so what you're saying is that Dell might have planned an external adapter and decided to drop it?
Designers route ALL pins to testpoints when using ICT (in circuit test) so they can BOUNDRY SCAN the BGA device, IE: make sure all pins are soldered.
Common on many PCB's, even those with active parts on both sides, surely not enough room on the Axim 50/51 PCB.
The USB host would require only two pins wired to the Intel chip: D+ and D- as power and ground would be picked up elsewhere.
Power would need to be fused, filtered and switched via a FET or small "allinone" chip that had all these functioned intergrated (saving PCB space).
The data lines would need to be routed as a MATCHED PAIR and terminated with a matching network and ESD protection (also sometimes done with a small "all in one device".
If the two needed signals were routed to the connector, the matching network and ESD protection would need to placed and routed, but not need to be populated.
__________________
[FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=Blue] - Mark0 (The Technologist)
Designers route ALL pins to testpoints when using ICT (in circuit test) so they can BOUNDRY SCAN the BGA device, IE: make sure all pins are soldered.
Common on many PCB's, even those with active parts on both sides, surely not enough room on the Axim 50/51 PCB.
The USB host would require only two pins wired to the Intel chip: D+ and D- as power and ground would be picked up elsewhere.
Power would need to be fused, filtered and switched via a FET or small "allinone" chip that had all these functioned intergrated (saving PCB space).
The data lines would need to be routed as a MATCHED PAIR and terminated with a matching network and ESD protection (also sometimes done with a small "all in one device".
If the two needed signals were routed to the connector, the matching network and ESD protection would need to placed and routed, but not need to be populated.
Sorry, but not ALL the pins are brought out these days. there are other methods used to perform boundary scans. Correct circuit operation can be interpreted via other means and there is not enough board realestate around nowadays for a pile of testpoints that will only be used once - so I'm waiting to get a board so I can find out IF the signals are available.
I'm still curious about the test points along the edge of the board. As for the ESD protection chip, that can be grabbed from any junked USB device or just use a few zeners for spike and reverse protection.
So bigbop... when's the board due in? I can't wait for the first findings... :D
Just today at work a woman brought an ipod shuffle in and I thought it would be nice if we would have been able to trade music and what not. (they were freely downloadable, no piracy... she had something called "the chicken song")
me thinks that those 4 pins ARE usb host, and the reason dell didnt do anythign about them is becosue they didnt want to write drivers for what might be connected to those ports.
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