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Bluetooth USB 2.1 mod (X41t)

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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abbiecd
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2014 8:01 pm
Location: Pullman, Washington

Bluetooth USB 2.1 mod (X41t)

#1 Post by abbiecd » Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:51 pm

My CDC with modem/IBM Bluetooth IV (BMDC-3) bit the dust over a year ago and I finally had a chance to work on integrating bluetooth internally. I had been using a low profile bluetooth adapter, but felt I could do better.

I figured I'd share a brief in case someone else might be interested in bringing their X41's bluetooth to a more current version, and perhaps others can recommend improvements on my hackish implementation.

I tracked down sufficient documentation per the TOKYO-3 (X31 I think) showing on page 41 the connector assignments. I felt pretty lucky finding a wiring of the CDC connector; over the past year I hadn't found any documentation.

I opted to recycle the connector on my failed CDC bluetooth/modem module. I tried to desolder, but my iron's point is not fine enough for that kind of work, so I resorted to scraping the connector off the surface. Nearly all of the contacts came free from the connector, but the plastic was wholly in tact.

I soldered the ends of four insulated, thin wires (1/100th of an inch diameter) to a bluetooth USB dongle (BCM92046DG-CL1ROM Bluetooth 2.1 Adapter). I plumbed the ends of these thin wires in through the header of the salvaged connector and as long as I populated both sides, the connector fits snugly. I suppose I could have leveraged an additional circuit to enable power only when the line BDC_ON is enabled, but I was more keen to get the critter zipped back up before my time off came to an end. So I used the following:

CDC PIN 20 - VCC3AUX => USB Power
CDC PIN 32 - USBP4- => USB DATA-
CDC PIN 34 - USBP4+ => USB DATA+
CDC PIN 36 - GND => USB Ground

I would have preferred to have salvaged Sony UX's UGPZ6 module since it has an RF header, but I couldn't find any diagrams for its data header or any of the eight test points on the circuit card.

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