Gentouch USB Host working with several devices

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to post a success with getting the USB Host working with the Gentouch 78. As some of you might have heard something very close to this hardware has been released in Germany called the Surfer Tablet. I went ahead and installed their latest updated images at

http://smartbook.de/(X(1)S(mzq3ok45...59-397e4a3fe0c9/OS_Surfer_Update_24082010.rar

It utilizes the same fastboot update process as the Gentouch 78. Bear in mind this will install options for HDMI and the language will be set to German automatically. It can be switched back to English once installed.

Follow the same process to root the machine and from a terminal with superuser rights type the following

echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/dwc_otg.0/setmode​

echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/dwc_otg.0/setmode​

I found that mode two enabled my host but you may want to try to switch back and forth to see if you have better results.

Once enabled I've found the following devices were recognized and function with the Gentouch:

Logitech M-UAG120 USB mouse,
8GB Centon Datastick Pro USB stick,
Logitech Y-UR83 USB keyboard,
Iomega LDHD-UP 1TB External USB drive.

Good luck,

Corvus

 

sweet!!!! i'd be curious as to if this might work with the native GT rom? rooted of course.....

 

I attempted it without success. Thats not to say that the dwc_otg driver and OS init from the Surfer can't be used with the Gentouch install though.

 

Too bad if someone get's this to work be sure to tell how!

 

Sounded to good to be true. Just have to wait on USA side of AuGen for Gentouch78 for these neat features.

 

Not sure what you mean Tipstir. Apart from it coming up in German until set back to English this installation is virtually identical to what it was before (including all my previous apps remaining). Actually its a bit better in that it includes Calibration but does not axe the Google apps. Based on your sig line you do not seem adverse to installing non-Augen patches to your device to make the GT78 better.

But ok. As I mentioned, I might try to back up my system as it stands and isolate the differences around the files with one of Augen's installs. It might just be some fixup needed in the /etc directory to get the Augen stuff working without even replacing their drivers.

Corvus

 

This actually worked well, I was able to use a Microsoft Curve 2000 keyboard to type in the browser, guys don't forget to adb shell at least the first command, it wont work until you do. I'm working on pulling the files required to patch our gentouch system.img

 

Thus far, go my wireless mouse to connect (but do very little....maybe some wireless gryo controllers in our future), keyboard, and a flash drive. I haven't yet tried usb-audio, but definitely will when I get home. Time to do the hardware mods for a proper USB host port!


Next question....how do we make it stop so that adb works again with our computer?

 

You should be able to toggle out of the mode by issuing either a 0 or a 2 to the setmode command

echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/dwc_otg.0/setmode

or


echo 2 > /sys/devices/platform/dwc_otg.0/setmode​

Do you find one of the two works for you?

 

So i tried this myself as there were many questions left unanswered, hopefully it will save others the trouble if they are on the fence about trying this themselves. On the computer, I used the command:

adb shell
echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/dwc_otg.0/setmode

Immediately the computer lost USB connection with the augen as it switched into host mode. I then tried the following devices:

Generic optical mouse - It works, but not with a cursor, moving the mouse around simply selects whatever files/options are on the screen, left clicking is like tapping, but I dont remember what right clicking did (long press?)

Dell USB keyboard - works just like it should. Though I would like it better if I could get the android keyboard to stop popping up whenever I click on a text input field

Logitech Playstation keyboard - works just like it should.

Generic CSR bluetooth 2.1 dongle - LED lights up but I get no prompts or settings changes to acknowledge it

Generic 1.3mp Webcam w/mic - No response, prompts or settings changes, though I did not try a voice or video application that might have other settings.

Microsoft VX-5000 webcam w/mic - same as above

Microsoft LX-3000 USB headset - It got power, the mute button works and the volume controls actually worked. But all audio continued to play through the onboard speaker and there were no options to change audio input/output

Logitech Premium 350 USB headset - same as above

HP 1gb flash drive - It mounted as USB mass Storage device, but I could not find any way to access it or get any info about the device once connected.

 

USB drives are mounted to the /scsi directory I believe (Im not sure why).

I also believe you could modify the vold.conf file in the /etc directory to point elsewhere for the mount.

Sorry I probably should have mentioned that in the original post.

 

Amtek, did you try putting music on the flash drive and going into music on the GT?

 

Awesome, got it to work. I was able to get a Geek Squad 4 gig USB drive to mount and was able to browse and access files through Root Explorer.

Other items that worked.

Targus USB Mouse- No courser appeared.

Microsoft Media Keyboard- caused my gt to reset and go into a restart loop at the surfer loading image when plugged in.

Unknown brand of USB Drive- Connected and was able to explore through Root Explorer.

Iphone 3g- I did not think it would connect, but phone tried to start charging, then disconnected. Did this ever second while connected.

 

sifon187, can you play music of your flash drives?

 

If Sifon187 was able to browse through the files, It should work. I was kinda rushing to try everything and didnt browse the directories too well. ES File browser can even connect to and play music and some videos shared on my win XP machine network shares, so a mounted flash drive should be no problem