Comments on: Hardware Porn: Seagate Dockstar teardown

By: firestorm_v1

firestorm_v1 — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:41:54 +0000

Hello Sumit:

Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t see why not. With a custom OS like OpenWRT or DD-WRT, and wpa-supplicant, you should be able to install and configure the wireless card to work properly. Write back if you are able to get it running. I’m sure that once configured, you could do more with the device than you could with the dockstar tethered.

Thank you for your comment.

FIRESTORM_v1

By: Sumit

Sumit — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:57:34 +0000

Do you know if we can use a wireless network adapter on one of the USB ports to connect the docstar wirelessly to the network?

Thanks.

By: firestorm_v1

firestorm_v1 — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:00:20 +0000

Excellent! Thank you for the link. As soon as I get some money, I gotta get a few of them and get my DSes running again!

FIRESTORM_v1

By: firestorm_v1

firestorm_v1 — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:48:43 +0000

That’s not a bad idea. I was thinking about using a serial port based setup however I found out that Linux does not support half-duplex serial communication. With a parallel port, you might be onto a good idea. A few shift registers and some control hardware, you could control a lot of relays with one 8 bit parallel bus.

Happy Hacking!

FIRESTORM_v1

By: Eddy

Eddy — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 05:38:01 +0000

great article!
I would like to user this with USB to parallel port driving relays. Has any body seen linux software (driver, scripts) for that?

By: Seagate Dockstar Discussion and Tutorial Thread

Seagate Dockstar Discussion and Tutorial Thread — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:44:06 +0000

[...] [...]

By: MrPicky

MrPicky — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:21:08 +0000

@firestorm

there are plenty of USB enclosures on eBay that will fit easily, if a bit off center.

The top slot on the Dockstar is about 5-7mm wider than the smallest USB laptop drive enclosure I’ve seen on ebay. I’ve used/sold over a dozen with no problems. I sell them to clients when they need the files off the drive from their dead laptop, or if they just want to use the drive as an external for backups.

One I’m using now has the mini usb connector near the center, and it fits just fine. They are made of aluminum and anodized, they come in silver, ‘champagne’(pink), blue and black
I posted an image of one from ebay at:

http://bayimg.com/fAplAAAcg

They are about $5 to $7 USD, shipped. I have found that the ones with the usb connector much closer to one side get quite hot, but the ones that are a bit rounded on one end like the picture are cool and fast.

I’m pushing about 1GB/min to one on my dockstar, running Debian squeeze+samba+swat, right now (test backup).

By: firestorm_v1

firestorm_v1 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:43:40 +0000

@Peter:
After recent research, it appears that the rest of the pins on the connector are indeed a JTAG port. Since I’ve currently bricked my dockstar, I’m excited to validate and confirm this. Once I have my JTAG programmer, rest assured I’ll be posting an article here.

@cde:
I was thinking of something similar for the functionality of the device, but the idea of using the dock as a dock for the G1 is an excellent idea. I’ve been wanting to get ahold of a dead Freeagent drive but they’re too new to find cases for just yet.

@GZ:
Do you mean this article?
http://hackaday.com/2010/07/22/adding-a-serial-port-to-a-dockstar/
Hack-A-Day was nice enough to publish my article on their site.

By: GZ

GZ — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:10:03 +0000

hackaday.com points to a write up to add a serial port.

By: Seagate Dockstar en déstockage, un Plug Computer très abordable. « Galipe

Seagate Dockstar en déstockage, un Plug Computer très abordable. « Galipe — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:53:55 +0000

[...] Pour voir la bête de l’intérieur, voici des photos de l’ouverture de ses entrailles. [...]