A8js Homemade almost Flush bluetooth hack

If the btotech.com post would have come 1 week earlier I probably would have done that. But I really wanted bluetooth, and I wanted a way that wouldn't void my warranty and not stick out. It looks a little rough in the pictures, and I probably could have been a little more careful, but it looks pretty good, and it only sticks out about 1 to 1.5mm from the left side.

1) I bought the smallest usb key I could find
2) measured an old usb plug
3) cut the usb plug as short as possible
4) used an old usb plug cover I found in my drawer
5) 4 wires of a black ide cable
6) Soldered everything together.
7) sanded a opening into the card slot cover
8) wrapped the exposed usb bluetooth circuit board with electrical tap
9) inserted it into the card slot.

I figured if I needed to send in my laptop for warranty work, I can still pull out the usb plug and send in the laptop without the card slot plug.

Like I said if I knew I could add a factory module I would have, but ohhh well, all of this probably took about 2 hours.

 

Nice relatively non-destructive mod Gives people ideas of what they can do. I always like clever solutions that work well.

 

a little more intrusive then most people would like to do but non the less very very creative. I wish i had help like you. There is a much easier method and does not require soldering which will definitely void your warranty. i will post that in the sticky of live videos above next week

 

Good work... don't loose that creative touch... it's easily lost when thinking outside the box isn't seen as profitable.

 

so all you did was modify the usb dongle correct?

can you link this usb dongle that is so small please, where to purchase it and its brand?

Id put mine in that same place. It seems the a8js has an extra usb port to me seems quite fitting to put it right there.

 

stamar why dodnt you just get the intenal bt module and follow my guide for modding? better yet why didnt you just get bt when you were bying it?

 

Doesn't JMotz's option (inventive and brilliant buy the way, two thumbs up) keep the warranty intact? It sounds like he is not modding the notebook at all, just the bluetooth module.

 

I do belive he said soldering was required

 

I think what he did was he took the USB plug from an old cable and soldered wires from the USB bluetooth module to it, then plugged the plug into his USB port and covered it over with an old plug cover. Then taped the internals from the BT module inside his PCMCIA slot dust cover, running the wires down to the plug... So nothing on the notebook itself was modified, just the dust cover.

That's a very nice mod, almost something you could sell a kit for to people who have their USB port/PCMCIA in close proximity.

 

Eddie,

From what you seem to be saying, buying the BT from you and installing it ourself WILL void the Asus warranty. Is that correct?

 

I got it exactly how I wanted it Eddie, Im very happy with it. Thanks. I preferred not paying for bluetooth....

The only bluetooth device I even have to test is a cell phone lol.

My personal plans right now are to wait until atheros pre n mini pci e cards come out with the module and likely use your guide as installation instructions.

kill a few birds with one stone because the 3945 is not good enough for me.


oh ps when i ordered it from you it was not an option.

I want to wait at least a while before I start any craft projects though.

 

Hi sorry I've been really busy at work, but I didn't solder anything directly on the laptop the only soldering was to the little usb key I chopped up. I ended up using this dongle it's not bluetooth 2.0 but I was only really interested, in the dial up and mouse profile and the 2.0 modules were bigger. So this shouldn't have any effect on your warranty, it's just a usb device still just the circuit board is just kind of placed inside the express card slot. I just wish I would have cut my little opening into the express card slot a little cleaner.

AZIO Corp BTDL41-221 USB 1.1 Bluetooth Adapter - Retail

I actually built it at first with a different module, I had the AZIO one lying around, the outer case is really flimsy and had broken anyway, I noticed this bluetooth module had a little patch antenna as opposed to the one I first attached. This one is actually pretty easy to solder up, since the usb connectors are right on the pcb. You just have to have another usb plug you can butcher, a little ide cable, and some thing to cover the raw usb plug.

The one thing that was a little tricky is that I cut my usb plug so close the little contacts wanted to fall out so they are soldered\epoxied holding them in. It's pretty easy, and just to be safe I plugged the little contraption into my desktop to see if it would recognize the hardware, and I decided it would be easier and cheaper if I accidently blew up my desktop mother board.

You really are only soldering 4 wires from the usb pcb to 4 wires on a usb plug. Like I mentioned in my first post I probably would have bought the bto module but I thought this was my only option.

Good luck, Jon