Since they are available I am hoping to get stuff working on them.
They only have 3.3v available in them, the supplied power adapter is a junk transformer based 9VDC one that gives between 11 and 13v depending on the AC voltage - not what you want going into your devices.
What I have done is solder to the board where there are pads that would have a resistor to the USB socket- taken that to a hub (a $1 one) that seems content with 3.3v, and from there I have taken it to a cheap card reader I have that I supply power after the 3.3v regulator that it has in it (card reader only does 2 gig SD cards so no big loss gutting it)
All seems to work ok hardware wise. I am still battling with the various howtos on getting it to boot up of the flash and then do the pivotroot to the SD card as the boot device, but seems that it is a strong contender for working. I will put some pics up a little later. I realy need to find another card reader that I can afford to gut (and that doesnt suck) that I can poke the card out the side of the router somehow.
Progress on the 520GC...
Re: Progress on the 520GC...
If you supply 5V to the router instead, could you use regular 5V USB peripherals? Any reason why that wouldn't work?
Thanks for the update, I'm looking forward to the pics.
Thanks for the update, I'm looking forward to the pics.
Jeff Keyzer
http://mightyohm.com
http://mightyohm.com
Re: Progress on the 520GC...
Why not just add your own regulator off the router's crappy 9V? For low current, a 7805 would be easy enough to add...
As for a source for cheap card readers, check www.dealextreme.com
As for a source for cheap card readers, check www.dealextreme.com
Re: Progress on the 520GC...
Im not too keen on relying on an external power supply for regulation. The one that I got with my 520GU has an output that goes all over the place depending on draw, and to get a half decent looking one from a shop is about $20 or so - close to what I paid for the routers.
Suprising how many things seem to work ok on 3.3v, a bluetooth dongle does, another crappier card reader without a regulator does, junk prolific USB/Nokia data cable does. FDTI on the arduino does, and the arduino itself is happy to run.
My $0.01 MP3 player that uses a µSD card will show a device, but not charge and my digital photoframe seems to think its charging, but never get anywhere so really the need to get 5V for these things which are not going to be removed from the router doesnt seem to be a big deal.
I have been trying to get the stuff to build a file that has all the basics and the USB port stuff as well in it, not getting it compiling and have more pressing things over the next couple of weeks to worry about.
Suprising how many things seem to work ok on 3.3v, a bluetooth dongle does, another crappier card reader without a regulator does, junk prolific USB/Nokia data cable does. FDTI on the arduino does, and the arduino itself is happy to run.
My $0.01 MP3 player that uses a µSD card will show a device, but not charge and my digital photoframe seems to think its charging, but never get anywhere so really the need to get 5V for these things which are not going to be removed from the router doesnt seem to be a big deal.
I have been trying to get the stuff to build a file that has all the basics and the USB port stuff as well in it, not getting it compiling and have more pressing things over the next couple of weeks to worry about.