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    DIY CF-M34 wireless upgrade

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by toughhog, May 14, 2010.

  1. toughhog

    toughhog Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi
    I have a CF-M34 933MHz that I'm pumping to pull out the best of it.
    After refurbishing the battery pack with fresh cells, I inserted a PCMCIA card with two USB2 output and bought a mini Bluetooth dongle and today a Sitecom 150N WiFi dongle. Those two are very small but I would like to have everything inside the shell.
    So this idea popped up: would it be possible to hack a 1 in 3 out USB hub, keeping only the bare board inside the TB, routing the USB signal to the input of the hub than connecting the BT and WIFI dongle (without the case) to two outputs and reconnecting the third output to the original one?
    Do you experts out there think it can be done with average soldering skills and a good soldering station?
     
    toughhog, May 14, 2010
    #1
  2. Springfield

    Springfield Notebook Deity

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    Springfield, May 14, 2010
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  3. mnementh

    mnementh Crusty Ol' TinkerDwagon

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    I've done this hack myself on a CF-28; if you can find the room in your little beastie you should be able to do it. You do need to remember to find a switched source of +5VDC at 1.5A-2A to feed your hub, especially if you're going to use the signal from your PCMCIA USB card, as they can only supply a TOTAL of approx 150-200ma out to BOTH USB ports, since the pcmcia slot is only capable of providing 330ma at 3.3v to the card per the PCMCIA design spec.

    I would NOT recommend doing this hack with the built-in USB port, as I do believe it is USB1.1 and will be tortuously slow once running through a USB hub.

    mnem
    Everything stops for tea.
     
    mnementh, May 15, 2010
    #3