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by **Minox** » 15 Mar 2006, 22:55

I have dismantled my iGesture Number Pad (gleaned from a iGesture Keyboard).

I have harvested a Surface mount USB connector from a broken Sony digital camera. I mapped the colors of wires to the connector internally on the iGesture and will add the mini-USB connector to the iGesture numberpad in place of the 4" USB cable.

I have no question that this will work.

Added 9:35pm 3/15/06

All Done!

I have posted pictures <a href="http://www.tycomsystems.com/fingerworks/igesture/usb/">HERE</a> (Sorry, they are blurry).

regards,

Minox (w/ removable USB cable on his iGesture)

by **The00Dustin** » 16 Mar 2006, 04:05

Awesome. Travel with your numpad a lot? Just curious as to why you'd do tht instead of getting an extension cable unless you do take it with you often. Good idea & good job, nonetheless. Thanks for your contribution to the cause (now we just have to find a surface mount USB connector if we want to do the same).

by **ivanw** » 16 Mar 2006, 11:46

No more gloomy talk they said, well, you are showing the way.

by **isaacs** » 16 Mar 2006, 20:26

Why is there the fw mini on the back picture? Did you change the plates?
Isaac.S

Website · by **nomaded** » 16 Mar 2006, 21:43

As other disassembly pics have shown, FingerWorks had a tendancy to reuse the Lexan surface. My guess is that the FingerWorks probably had a bunch of pads produced, with different images shown on each side and assembled as demand required.

by **Minox** » 18 Mar 2006, 17:09

well, as I said it was removed from a iGesture Keyboard - Regular Keyboard with Igesture glued to numberpad area.

It had a 4" long cable to go to a hub in the keyboard.

Well, I had to use an extension cable to use it anyway so I already had the plug in and remove syndrom of that mess. At the end of the day I was still left with a wire that could get kinked and break just like all the other products but I was unplugging and such every day anyway.

Well, I might as well remove the kink issue once and for all and never have to worry about if the cable breaks - I can just get another. Besides, now I can use a retractable cable and stow it away tiny for travel.

Wouldn't it be cool if the 2 halves of the touch stream "snapped" into the tent stand and the tent stand plugged into your PC. You could swap pads to change your layout and such. Instead of the cable between the halves there would be 2 connectors on the stand that the halves snapped into and the connection to the 2 sides would be made in the stand.

Just rambling about interesting production ideas in my head... ciao

Minox

by **Rqyteqto** » 18 Mar 2006, 19:06

Yeah, the ribbon connecting cable is the single greatest threat to these boards. I'd really like to have mine father apart and I'd really like to have that connection to be far more secure.

I really appreciate what you've done Minox. Great job.

This gives me the inspiration to think about some way to set up a TS with BlueTooth or some other wireless connection. The biggest problem is power, but a small battery pack should deal with that. The critical issue would be what input the TS needs and can handle. 5V obviously, but what tolerance range and what current draw? There are plenty of little battery powered chargers on the market, I just bought one that was intended for portable recharging of an iPod (in my case a Mobiblu). Its got a 2200 mAH battery with over/reverse charge protection. Typical USB connection output is, I believe, 500 mA. so that little bugger would suffice for at least 4 hours. There are rechargeable AA cells with 2800 mAH capacity, 4 of those would provide 6V (which can be converted to 5v with a regulator, if necessary) for up to 22 hours and could be replaced in a jiffy. There are lots of LIon cells that are flat and put out 1.5/3 volts and could be fitted into the tent stand. Imagine, no USB cable at all.

by **Minox** » 18 Mar 2006, 19:21

I have the remaining 4" USB cable from the iGesture... I can measure the voltage out the USB port... that should tell us what the board can handle.

Unless it can draw more power as it needs? doesn't sound right though... Hmmm

Minox

by **The00Dustin** » 20 Mar 2006, 16:42

As a general rule of thumb, a pair of USB ports (a single root hub) is supposed to output a pretty clean 5V (maybe +/- 5%) with up to 500mA. A TS keyboard (two halves) is supposed to draw nearly all of that power. However, my laptop powers the keyboard and a 500mA USB Bluetooth adapter fine at the same time (maybe it has two single port root hubs?)

by **ivanw** » 20 Mar 2006, 18:17

FW site page Technical Details - TouchStream LP says: Power: 150 mA.

But iGesture's Technical Details says the same: 150mA as well :!:

We have also someting about this at the end of this thread from the former FW support forum:

Full Explanation
The root port on your PC supplies 500 mA. If you plug a 4-port unpowered hub into it, the hub itself uses 100mA, leaving 100mA for each device port, assuming you're actually going to fill all 4 ports. But if you're only plugging in say 2 devices, one that uses 100mA, the other (an iGesture or TouchStream) still has 300mA (plenty) available, and things can work fine.

Except that Windows applies a very conservative power policy, asking each device how much peak power it can use (not directly sensing the power usage). If any device reports a peak usage > 100mA, Windows disables that device unless the hub has external power. Why? Because Microsoft is afraid you'll fill all 4 ports with > 100mA devices, none of the devices will work and you'll have no idea why!

Linux, and possibly Mac OS X, don't bother to apply this conservative power policy, which is why Magic can get by OK with his two devices on the Linux hub.

__________________
FingerWorks Support

by **The00Dustin** » 20 Mar 2006, 23:28

Ivan did his homework, I just tried to recall. Howevr, it seems like something about FW TS LPs used quite a bit of power (more than 150mA). Do you remember anything (like maybe programming draws more)? It is certainly posible that I dreamed that up...

by **ivanw** » 20 Mar 2006, 23:55

...

Right, and here is a clue about this from Fingerworks Support Forums > MultiTouch Utilities > Firmware Upgrader and Feature Selector > Firmware 1.22 will not upgrade or modify.

MrLightTouch wrote:Kensington manufactures the original keyboard that the iGesture keyboards were built from.

Because the builtin Kensington USB hub is weak, you can't upgrade firmware when the NumPad is plugged in thru that hub. You need to unplug the short iGesture NumPad cable and plug it directly into your PCs root hub or another externally powered hub. Depending on your desk setup, you might need to get a USB extension cable for this.

__________________
Wayne Westerman
FingerWorks CTO
& First Zero-Force Typer

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Mini-USB on iGesture Number Pad

Mini-USB on iGesture Number Pad

removable USB cable on iGesture

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