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hi again.
just wanted to post success with fido's hub, though I modified the wires to put the hub under the MOB and add two usb plugs under the RAM door. it's true that practice makes perfect... got this mod. done, with all the resoldering in under 2 hours!
it was a very long run from the hub back up to the webcam, so if possible, it might be better to keep the hub up in the lid.... but then I would have had two fairly long runs back down under the MOB for the usb plugs...
a couple warnings about the fido hub setup
1) the plug on the end for the webcam is a 4 pin, and on my eee PC, it was a 5 pin receptacle. be sure to put the plug in so that the plug is pushed up as far as possible, to get proper 1:1 alignment. there was a spare pin on the 5 pin plug on my eee wire
2) the usb plug (white plastic one, upper plug in picture) can be plugged into a device EITHER side up. this is BAD, because you can short your 5v to ground on the outside ground of a standard usb plug. I did this and blacked out my external hub... again, this was a protected circuit, so a reboot was all it took. If this had been wired from +5 on the MOB, I would be looking for vinnie's transistor.
p.s. anyone in the SF, CA area needs help with modding, i'd be happy to show you how.
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Quite a nice post.
I might sound a bit ignorant with the next two questions but... here we go:
Is the "Spare Power cable" shown on the last picture coming with the hub or you added it yourself?
Did you connect it anywhere?
I will be receiving my kit soon and will have to go through a similar process.
More questions if you don't mind:
- I bought exactly the same kit as you (hub+t. screen) from Fido, and I am wondering if the resulting image from adding the t. screen to the LCD is clearly degraded or not?
- After installing the t. Screen, when you close the lid, is it obvious that the EEE's profile has changed?
Thanks a lot in advance!
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Nabil wrote:
Quite a nice post.
I might sound a bit ignorant with the next two questions but... here we go:
Is the "Spare Power cable" shown on the last picture coming with the hub or you added it yourself?
Did you connect it anywhere?
I will be receiving my kit soon and will have to go through a similar process.
More questions if you don't mind:
- I bought exactly the same kit as you (hub+t. screen) from Fido, and I am wondering if the resulting image from adding the t. screen to the LCD is clearly degraded or not?
- After installing the t. Screen, when you close the lid, is it obvious that the EEE's profile has changed?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Yes. Good eye there. The extra power wire is soldered to the hub in case I need more power once I plug two more devices in. This saves me from flipping the mob again. It is taped down now but I plan to solder it to one of the USB 5v if needed.
I personally do not see degradation of the screen with the touchscreen. I actually like it so much, I wouldn't hesitate at all to install again.
In regards to the case profile, my eee closes all the way. The only thing is a slight bulge of the bezel at the lower left corner, but this could have been less if I had cut more of the molded plastic pins out of the lid. Some people took the black layer of padding out from behind the LCD screen. This gives plenty of space for the touchscreen.
Good luck and let us know how your mod turns out 
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You are giving me here very precious info! Thanks really.
- If you don't minde Chewy, what are the pros/cons of cutting part of the molded plastic pins out of the lid instead of removing the padding? What would you recommend?
Thanks again!
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nabil. I would keep the black pad and have a slight bulge, since the pad might protect the LCD a bit. Also, you would not have to pull the lcd out of the lid. Just depends if you mind a slight bulge.
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Personally I wouldn't mind a slight bulge. The issue is that this EEE was a present of mine for my girlfriend. She has been using it already for a couple of weeks without any touch screen. She loves it and spends an average of 2-3 hours/day using it. She dosn't like the idea of me "butchering" her new baby, so it is kind of a goal to give it back to her in an "immaculate" shape + the touch screen functionality.
I'll try not to touch the pad, and may be look at cutting out some plastic from the lid pins...
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that's quite a sweet present. I hope that she appreciates all the time and research that you put into this project. hopefully, she will like the touchscreen feature when it's done... if nothing else, point out to her that people are selling modded eee's for good money, so she has both a valuable and unique present from you.
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Chewy, you've got a point! My girlfriend appreciates much more the time and effort put into a present than any other thing. And if the result of the mod is something practical and original [definitely, a touch screen is the best addition to an EEE, followed closely by extra storage] then the present is, to put it in your words, UNIQUE.
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Chewy:
Great mod
I'm presently wrestling with the Fido hub and touchscreen kit.
Did the mod, booted fine, went to BIOS, activated camera, rebooted and it locked up on USB ports. Had to disconnect the fido hub to boot.
Disconnected the hub, ran fine.
Double checked the connection polarities twisted the wires, reconnected, same problem lockup on boot.
I strongly suspect it's the lack of a 5V added power line to the hub.
If you could repost your photo of the point on the ub to connect the external power with an arrow or circle I would be very pleased.
Sadly I'm down in Orange county CA or I'd track you down for modding.
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Chewy,
Thank you for pointing out the cam connector being a 5 pin. Thats what caused my machine to not boot up properly. You would barely notice it. Now everything works fine. Thanks for your help.
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meatran888 -
that's GREAT. glad to hear my mistakes could help others. enjoy your eee!
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Same here, when I had my EEE open I noticed that I'd made the same mistake. All better now!! many thanks!
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Wow as chewy might know, I also did a similar mod. I connected the webcam, touchscreen, mini bluetooth and a corsair 32gb. I had to fix the webcam connector since it wasn't soldered well. I also asked fido to fix the touchscreen connector so that it could work with the touchscreen I bought from him, but he never fixed it, so I had to rewire it.
I think fido-dido's hub is also pretty slow for a usb 2.0 hub. I've disabled the camera and bluetooth and tested the speed of my corsair and the fastest write I got was 6 meg/second. However, when I connected the usb to an external port I got 20 meg/sec. I don't think it's a current problem since the current drainers were off.
Btw chewy, do you ever plan on soldering the hub to the 5v point? I kind of thinking that I should do that. In my setup the camera and bluetooth cannot be turned on at the same time, of course it's not an issue for me though, I rarely use them together.
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fvig2001
I haven't needed to solder the xtra power wire yet. I left it in there in case, and so I wouldn't need to flip the MOB again. the wire's sitting right next to a usb port.
one other reason that i waited is that coming only off the cam port, I can turn off the hub assembly to save power (there's a menu item in the wiki that someone wrote that toggles cam on/off).
I haven't had any problem with devices not working yet, but when I open the eee again to add the power line, i'll prob. add a juaquin switch to turn the power off for battery saving times.
is there a xandros utility for measuring transfer speeds? I would like to see how my fido hub is doing.
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sorry for the delay, i've been away from my desktop machine with all the pix
1) this is a closeup of fido's hub with a spare power wire soldered to it. you could use any of the 4 V+, but this corner worked for the layout the best
2) this is a closeup of the left usb port, where I will solder to, to access extra power if needed. (it's been mentioned that this port might be a bit weaker than the other usb ports, but it's closer to my wiring and I will already have up to 500 mA from the cam port)
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Thank you, Chewy! I scratched my head forever on the camera non-boot issue. Didn't have a solution til I found your post. So simple, but impossible without a little help. Thanks again.
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verge - was it the cam plug in the wrong place or what?
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chewy wrote:
1) this is a closeup of fido's hub with a spare power wire soldered to it.
Outstanding!
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hi chewy, nice work!!
just wondering about the extra 5V supply, why didnt you take it from the underside of the board?? if you look here; http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=6036
after the text beggining "This is the mod I carried out" there is a picture with a wire on the left connecting to 5v, rather than having to route to an actual usb port.
Forgive me if this is an obvios answer question but iwas curious having looked at that thread not long before this one.
cheers!
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@ h84ll1
it's fine to take the power from the motherboard. my preference is to use one of the usb ports, to protect from shorting to ground. I learned this the hard way, when I once shorted across my test probes and once pinched a wire on reassembly and had the eee go black.
luckily, if you source from a usb port, you can just go back and reset the computer. if you source directly from the MOB, you might fry the infamous transistor on the board.
it has also been suggested to use a tiny fuse for the add-on circuits, to protect from blowing the MOB.
hope that helps.
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hey chewy, in photo #2 of the first post could you tell me the name of the orange-red film/laminate you placed between the usb ports and the MOB.I got a similar kit on its way in the mail and was preparing materials to finish this mod asap!
thanks for all your help.esp the 4pin to 5pin webcam connection you mentioned.
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Genius !
You should add this to your sticky in the Hacks and Mods section.
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@flaamehead
the orange film is called Kapton
lots of the modders have used this for insulating. it comes in sheets or self-adhesive rolls
look on ebay. the stuff is pretty cheap. maybe $3 for a 8 x 11 inch sheet.
@gtisingh - thanks for the compliment. I didn't want to brag about just my mods, but maybe i'll reference it under fido hub issues.
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thanks chewy!
another link for kapton tape:http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5101
Also, another question about power usage through cam port.Any idea if a class II bluetooth (10 m), generic sdhc reader, ts and webcam can be maintained without failing due to overload?
I have no soldering skills or equipment so that extra juice 5v Usb port on the left isn't my best option.Cheers!
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flaamehead wrote:
thanks chewy!
another link for kapton tape:http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5101
Also, another question about power usage through cam port.Any idea if a class II bluetooth (10 m), generic sdhc reader, ts and webcam can be maintained without failing due to overload?
I have no soldering skills or equipment so that extra juice 5v Usb port on the left isn't my best option.Cheers!
The web cam won't quite handle Bluetooth and webcam simultaneously. If you use just one at a time, then you're fine. Otherwise, best to plug the bt into another port.
Good luck.
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