[ale] OT: hacking wireless module

[hooterpincher at gmail.com (Charles Shapiro)]

Hmm. Pretty interesting.  A quick search on sparkfun ( http://sparkfun.com
) turns up an Arduino shield using the RT5350, which looks to my untutored
eye like a pretty similar part.    The sparkfun shield costs, like, $60, so
it might be worthwhile to get this one working.

I take it the chips are SMD ed to the daughterboard?  That means you are
probably not going to be able to un-solder them from the carrier.  Sounds
like you have some poking around to do to figure out what is going on in
there. USB is only 4 wires, so you have two unknowns. They could be extra
power, extra ground, or even just there to strengthen the physical
connection to the motherboard.

As a first step, I'd power on the tablet (assuming it's still un-broken
enough to do that) and use a multimeter to try to figure out which
connection(s) is//are vcc and which is//are ground.   An oscilloscope might
hint at which of those 6 lines are carrying data.

-- CHS

On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Boris Borisov <bugyatl at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have broken cheapo tablet from which i'm thinking to salvage the
> wireless module. The module is rtl8188eus mounted on small half by half
> inch PCB. This small board is soldered in 6 points to the mainboard i think
> easy to take out.
>
>
> 1. I assume the board is connected via USB but no certain?
>
> 2. Anyone done it to give some advice?
>
>
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