Powered Usb Drives

[triton]

i have some rayovac batteries that would rock for this 4.7v is close enough right? if not i have AAs

 

[BattleCattle]

Hmmm....wonder if any of the ports on my mp3 player actually provide power, perhaps I could tweak that to have its internal battery power...hmmm...itself lol

(my mp3 player isnt very unpowered friendly)

Otherwise, I'll be hacking up that USB extension cord I have lying around....where is that thing anyways? *shrug*

 

[Jdriele]

I have an Archos Jukebox. I hope it will be ok

 

[BattleCattle]

I have an Archos Jukebox. I hope it will be ok

​

According to the Archos Jukebox manual, if you're having USB issues you should,
"- Check that you are not connected to a USB port
repeated through a keyboard.
- Try to connect to the USB port directly without
going through a USB hub."

That would make me believe it has trouble going through unpowered ports (especially with the keyboard thing, however, then it says if you cannot access the drive,

"Out of battery power, use ARCHOS DC power
adapter to recharge and to power on unit."

so that makes me assume it uses battery power when connected to USB, so you probably wont have the power issue, but no guarantees.

Throughout the manual, however, it describes how to install the drivers, but its an old manual. Does it require custom drivers, or can it say, automatically be recognized by a computer running XP? If it still requires drivers, you'll need to find a linux version of the driver for it to work properly.

 

[Empyre]

Hmmmmm

Well this unit I've suggested to you (with your own 2.5" HDD) would be about £50-£60 cheaper than a ZEN... even though the ZEN has a much better battery life..

Oh.. and the ZEN needs custom drivers before it'll be seen as MASS storage and I don't believe any Linux ones have been written!

Even thought the BIXNet one has a shorter battery life, you wouldn't be running it continuous for the 2hrs, the best bet would be to hive off the data you need to your SD card..

This WILL work people.. it just needs some support yeah?

​

Creative just released new firmware for all thier mp3 players that do allow it to be seen as mass storage. I already have a zen so the cost to me is nothing!

 

[Empyre]

I just fully plan on getting 5v to my usb port which makes most of this a moot point. USB Wifi is my goal

​

Wouldn't it be easier to try SD wifi? I'm hoping we will be able to solder an sd wifi card inside so we dont loose the storage if we want to go wireless.

 

[Sonic-NKT]

@DijiTao
this is exactly what i did when i tried the gp32linux wifi version.
And it worked great, but i used rechargeable, its less voltage than normal batteries and its cheaper

EDIT:
there is no SD wifi driver available for linux yet, there isnt even a open driver for SDIO i think.

 

[DijiTao]

@DijiTao
this is exactly what i did when i tried the gp32linux wifi version.
And it worked great, but i used rechargeable, its less voltage than normal batteries and its cheaper

I was going to go with rechargeables too, 4 of them should give off right about 5v

 

[hagisbasheruk]

@DijiTao
this is exactly what i did when i tried the gp32linux wifi version.
And it worked great, but i used rechargeable, its less voltage than normal batteries and its cheaper

EDIT:
there is no SD wifi driver available for linux yet, there isnt even a open driver for SDIO i think.

​

not true see link http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9692674403.html
h34r:

 

[Sonic-NKT]

but this one isnt open so we cant port it i think!
would be nice to hear im wrong tho

 

[hagisbasheruk]

but this one isnt open so we cant port it i think!
would be nice to hear im wrong tho

​

embWiSe intends to license the SDIOWorx Stack framework in binary and source code form to device, semicon, OS and card vendors.
so its just a mater of time before it may get implamented into whatever Linux OS this GP2X is running?anyone know as i still don't have a clue.
PS maybe it will be in the next update for the GP2X,who knows

 

[lucoxade]

It looks like we could get a fund together to get a liscence for the code and release a binary driver for free to use wifi (assuming the GP2x supports SDIO, it does doesn't it?)

Also does this thing realy have a USB host port? where is it? surely there should be one of these

unless we use an adapter for the EXT. port :huh:

 

[Squidge]

GPH say it supports SDIO.

No, it doesn't officially support USB host, so there's no usb host port. If USB host is possible, you would have to make an adaptor for the provided usb port.

 

[JMS]

Just to let you good ppl know.. I got back from the US this morning with my shiny new USB2.0 "OTG" battery powered drive enclosure..

Should have an 80Gb 2.5" 5400 RPM drive arriving from eBuyer any day now (for about £70 or so) so total cost of unit at current exchange rates is about £100 all in..

This isn't the cheapest way of getting 2.5" USB2 external storage but I'm still betting on the battery power allowing something other devices doesn't (esp with something like the GP2X) - and no messing with cutting up cables and playing with 5v lines either..

Will keep you posted (no GP2X of course, but I'll be able to check out the drive and how the battery power works on other devices)

 

[Epicenter]

It's very possible you could use these devices with the system by supplying your own 5.0VDC supply to the USB VCC pin on the device. However, since the GP2x does not act as a USB host, this is probably impossible for the two devices to even communicate along USB. So, may as well stick to SDIO devices. There's a surprising amount of them.

 

[JMS]

Oh.. I double checked about the creative Zen firmware.. and for the Zen Touch at least, there's been no firmware updates since 2004 and certainly none that allow the Zen Touch to appear as "Mass Storage" to WinXP/2000 without special drivers being installed...

As for the GP2X not acting as a host, I heard that it DOES act as a host it just can't provide power.. which is what this battery powered drive would do for itself..

 

[triton]

ive been hearing alot of conflicting reports about host mode availability, i know it has another chip in there to do usb2.0 but it cant do usb host and the magiceyes chip can do host but its not enabled, confusing stuff for me anyway

 

[JMS]

Yeah that's worrying...

I spoke to people at GBAX.COM about this when I suggested the Bixnet device in the firstplace - they seemed adamant that it (the GP2X) would be able to act as a USB2.0 host and that the powering of external devices was the only issue (hence my original post to this thread in the first place because this thing would solve all that - unless you wanna remain tethered to a mains psu for other external drives that is.. )

I guess we can only speculate so far, the real proof will be found out the hard way I guess..