Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

A neighbor of mine dropped this off for me to take a look at. Archos asks you to pay 30 euros to unlock the web browser on it, which is actually Opera Mini (free). Similarly if you want more apps or plugins, you have to pay. Fortunately it can be jailbroken in a similar fashion to Apple devices, but you need PC connectivity for that, and he doesn't have a PC cable for it, it has a stupid proprietary connector.

It'll charge with a Samsung charger but won't connect with a Samsung data cable, so the pinouts for the data lines must be different.

I popped the thing open, and it's pretty lax inside. I can put a microUSB port in a convenient location. Finding the pinout of the proprietary dock connector took A LOT of digging, but here it is:

Viewed into Archos socket:
+-+------------------+
|X|123456789ABCDEFGHI|
+-+------------------+

X = Locking clip
1 = Attach sense (R to Ground -> 100k USB Connector, 220k USB Adapter, ? DVR)
2 = D- USB for both Host and PC
3 = D+ USB for both Host and PC
4 = +5V USB Host
5 = +5V USB PC
6 = \
7 = -> Serial communication and IRC Out - details unknown - tbd;)
8 = /
9 = IRC In
A = Audio Out R
B = Audio Out L
C = Ground for all!!!
D = Video Out Composite signal
E = maybe SPDIF? - tbd;)
F = S-Video Out C
G = S-Video Out Y
H = +5V DC IN
I = +5V DC IN

I'll go ahead and perform the mod tomorrow, and then unlock the software and all will be well.

[LDSisHere]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

How did you find that information, did you probe the hardware or search the net? Could you please post pictures of the finished product, I would like to see how it is mounted.

You seem to come up with some interesting ideas and projects and it is nice of you to share them. I want to mod my laptop fan after reading one of your posts about the subject. Keep up the good work.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

I found it, but before i did i also probed some by myself, and added a bit of extra info. The original pinout didn't say which audio channel was left and which was right - this was easily found by beeping (continuity checking) them to the connections on the headphone jack.

[lti]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

Why aren't you using a mini-USB connector when everybody has a million mini-USB cables and very few people have micro-USB cables?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

Everybody has a million microUSBs here since it became a standard for phones in Europe. Only Apple refuses to adhere to this law, although they said they will.

But the main reason is technical - microUSB has 5 wires in the end that plugs into the device, added to the 4 wires of the USB spec (5v, D+, D-, GND) there is a 5th "sense" line which is pulled to ground with a resistor. The resistor is included in the cable. Depending on the value of this resistor, the device detects what kind of cable has been plugged in it - charger or data.

[ratdude747]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

miniUSB also has 5 wires...

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

If you believe me, i never bothered to count the pins of a mini... I just knew micro has 5.

Anyway. Finally got it done today. It was a royal pain in the behind at first - it worked first time, and then i hot glued the wires so they don't come loose, and it would restart just as the removable drive was about to appear in Windows, each and every time. It also turned on/off by itself randomly, as if the power button were pushed. It drove me nuts, so i let it sit for a few days. Seems like hot glue had enough parasitic capacitance to mess things up...

Cleaned up all the hot glue a few days ago, and today i bought new tips for my Gordak station as the one on it was pretty badly oxidized. Thanks to that wiring was a breeze this time even with the ridiculously fine pin pitch of the connector on the Archos. I soldered the wires directly to the connector, it has a lot of test points but simple continuity checking revealed that the signals i wanted weren't there.

This time i also took some extra measures: I twisted the USB D+ and D- wires together. And it seems to have worked, removable drive showed up first time and STAYED there. It did shut down on me a few times, but that was because the battery was flat - the hard drive uses quite a bit of power, and USB charging alone isn't enough to keep it running if the battery's very low. I left it alone for half an hour and it behaves now. Put about 10GB of music on it, no hiccups, got around 12-13MB/sec write speed.

Now for the fun part - jailbreaking it. From what i've read it requires to be run from a Linux OS (as it's a Linux device), so i won't do it today.

Pics to follow tomorrow, as i've yet to close the case.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

All fixed up and back to the owner. Forgot the pics, haven't i? Here.

[kc8adu]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

gotta warn a friend who was considering another archos unit since his first was bulletproof till he dropped it in the sink.
its the same bullshit that is being tried with phones.does it have locked crap apps too?
nice hack ;-)

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Hacking a microUSB connector on an Archos 605 Wifi media player

All apps and plugins got unlocked by the jailbreak. The downside is that it requires wifi to activate if you don't have Opera already, which was the case. So it's a tethered jailbreak.

If you're talking about their tablets, there's a pretty large enthusiast base and pretty much everything is covered. These HDD media players, they've been abandoned already. The official content portal no longer works, so even if you wanted to buy a plugin or app for one of those, you can't.