TINY Bluetooth

[garrettg84]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00345YLY4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=AL7LHK6Q9LVTS

I ordered 4 of these the other day and expect them to show up tomorrow. I'm going to see what can be done about ripping them open and if they can be used as CHEAP bluetooth adapters for my projects. I will post what I find.

Has anyone else tried anything like this? For the 10$ it cost including shipping I figure I wouldn't be losing that much even if I failed miserably.

[billhowl]

http://hackaday.com/2009/08/08/tiny-bluetooth-teardown/
http://www.sparkfun.com/news/282

[kl22]

Hi,

The only problem I see with what you are doing is that it is meant for a PC which means it requires a driver. It is going to be very hard to develop the required drivers on you MCU.

From my understanding the , for example , has the component designed so that it automatically broadcasts itself. Where as for a bluetooth dongle you have to set it up to transmit it self. This also applies for pairing.

You might need to do some reverse engineering to get the Bluetooth dongle to work with an MCU rather than a pc.

[garrettg84]

Hi,

The only problem I see with what you are doing is that it is meant for a PC which means it requires a driver. It is going to be very hard to develop the required drivers on you MCU.

From my understanding the , for example , has the component designed so that it automatically broadcasts itself. Where as for a bluetooth dongle you have to set it up to transmit it self. This also applies for pairing.

You might need to do some reverse engineering to get the Bluetooth dongle to work with an MCU rather than a pc.

I don't intend on actually using it via USB host. I am going to try to locate the SPI/I2C/Serial leads that all of this company's other bluetooth products have. This one is completely undocumented (at least from what I've found), however with similar sized different version chips, I can find some basic information.

[kl22]

That would be amazing if you can figure it out!

I'm not too familiar with SPI/I2C, but hopefully you get it working and I can stop buying the crazy expensive bluetooth mates and bluesmirfs ($60 + each)

[Conscripted]

I'm going to see what can be done about ripping them open and if they can be used as CHEAP bluetooth adapters for my projects. I will post what I find.

Any luck?

Conscripted

[garrettg84]

I'm still waiting on them =( This is the first time I have EVER had to wait more than 2 days for something to arrive ordered off Amazon (and I buy ALOT of stuff from there). I'm hoping it wasn't lost in the mail. After browsing the hack a day and sparkfun comments and teardowns, it appears that alot of people have had similar ideas and just go quiet. I will atleast respond with a 'failed project' if I'm unable to figure it out. I hope they arrive today, I have a couple hours to tear down and play tonight, but due to working 2 jobs I might not have much time until the weekend if I'm not successful within the first couple hours.

[garrettg84]

So, first look, I have a completely different PCB layout than the one from sparkfun. ALL SMD chips/resistors/etc are on one side of the board with the MCU/Radio. The MCU/Radio is the same, however positioned slightly different. The crystal is through hole instead of SMD and on the opposite side of the board by itself. The antenna pattern is roughly the same, but smaller. I am unable to locate any 3pin SMD for voltage regulation. I am surprised to see a design without one. I guess they are relying on the USB port to be nice and regulated.

Instead of having 'Mini 3620 V2' printed on my board, mine has KNS3620A2. That string turns up ZERO google hits, this amazes me. I can search random numbers and letters and get google hits, but this string turns up NOTHING.

The ones I have also appear to have fewer total components by approx 5 SMD components.

I have found a pdf of the Accel Semi AS3600 chip which is a 64pin BGA chip with what looks to be identical functionality. There are 16 general purpose IO pins on the AS3600. If you chop those off, it brings the number of pins down closer to what we may be looking at. Then take into account that the 64pin bga also has 7 pins that are simply labled as NC or not connected....well that is JUST about 40 on the nose. The chip on this board appears to be a 40pin QFN.

I will likely be desoldering one of the chips shortly to see what I can find under the chip. This will be the first time getting to use my new hot air re-work station. Wooo-hooooo, hope I don't light something on fire!!!

Any words of wisdom or interest in this project?

[Conscripted]

I have no words of wisdom for you but I wish you luck. I would LOVE to pay $10 for bluetooth for a project.

Conscripted

[klims]

I have no words of wisdom for you but I wish you luck. I would LOVE to pay $10 for bluetooth for a project.

Same!

[Fr0stAngel]

G_G , wow nice going, hope u succeed ..Best of luck

[Conscripted]

Have you had any luck?

[garrettg84]

So far, it doesn't appear to respond to any commands on its spi or serial interfaces (provided i was able to identify them...). I have ordered a USB logic analyzer to see if I can watch things better, I'm not that confident I was able to identify the right pins. I only had a document of several 'similar' chips from the same manufacturer to go by.

While searching around, I did come across someone who managed to use one of these things on a propeller chip bit-banged usb host mode. With the propeller chip at about 8$ and this dongle, you are still at a 10$ price point for a working USB Bluetooth stack.

http://scanlime.org/2010/04/its-alive-bit-banging-full-speed-usb-host-for-the-propeller/
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?121321-Working-full-speed-%2812-Mb-s%29-bit-banging-USB-Host-controller

After seeing everything the propeller can do, I may be leaving my AVR stuff behind =/ Anyone on here use propeller chips? 8 Core MCU at 80mhz, they seem pretty powerful. There are already full 'driver' packages for VGA out and everything. I'm blown away by these things.

[Soeren]

Hi,

After seeing everything the propeller can do, I may be leaving my AVR stuff behind =/ Anyone on here use propeller chips? 8 Core MCU at 80mhz, they seem pretty powerful. There are already full 'driver' packages for VGA out and everything. I'm blown away by these things.

I have considered them for some apps, but I think I'll go for the XMOS' first as they are quite impressive.
However, they're probably too expensive and at least extreme overkill for the majority of projects.