Zipit Z2

Zipit Wireless Messenger Z2

Participants	Anus, User:buzz
Skills	We'll see
Status	Production
Niche
Purpose
Tool	No
Location
Cost
Tool category

Zipit Wireless Messenger Z2

zipit-vanity2.jpg {{#if:No | [[Tool Owner::{{{ProjectParticipants}}} | }} {{#if:No | [[Tool Cost::{{{Cost}}} | }}

Specs

PXA270 @ ~100-450Mhz
32MB RAM, 8MB Flash, MiniSD slot
2.8" 320x240 screen
802.11bg wifi, Audio (also input), USB host&otg (on weird connector)
Backlit keyboard <3

Mods

Painted Zipit

Yay :)

Laptop Dock

Mozzwald made a 'mini breakout board' for the dock connector some time ago. I designed a laptop dock style holder for it.

Get it here ; https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3657249

Charging Dock

I made a charging style dock for 3 zipits that encompass the original charge cable. Makes it a lot easier to plug it in.

Get it here ; https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3419975

Pouch

Knitted a little sock for the zipit. Its 50 tours high and 48 stitches wide.

First test version :

Battery

Update; now have a store bought 1500mAh lipo from aliexpress, 2000mAh on the way.

It turns out that a Nokia BP-4L LiPo battery fits perfectly. without any modifications to the case. Uncertain if thermistor matches specs, but it does seem to charge. As an added advantage, this battery is 1500mAh instead of stock 1250mAh.

Update to battery mod;

Mozzwald made this script ; http://mozzwald.com/zipit/openwrt/chrgstat which showed that the battery wasn't charging at all.

Measuring the thermistor leads from the Nokia battery showed me it had a 119k resistance at roomtemperature, way too high for the charge circuit. I now put just a 9.1K resistor between the thermistor lead and GND, and, its charging \o/

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/bq24030.pdf documentation for the charging circuit.

openwrt build

Just to mess around, i went to build openwrt.

https://github.com/openwrt-zipit/openwrt-zipit

Removed all feeds, set these ones;

Needed to do some mods to m4 and bison; (can only do this after failing first)

build_dir/host/bison-2.4.3/lib/stdio.h
build_dir/host/m4-1.4.16/lib/stdio.h

/*_GL_WARN_ON_USE (gets, “gets is a security hole – use fgets instead”);*/ 
#define gets(a) fgets( a, sizeof(*(a)), stdin)

Also disabled the makeinfo in gcc

toolchain/gcc/common.mk

MAKEINFO=missing

On alsa-lib i needed to edit package/feeds/zipit/alsa-lib/Makefile to get;

DEPENDS:=@AUDIO_SUPPORT +librt +libpthread

For ncmpc i need to add some depends aswell;

+glib2 +libncursesw

Hotplug2 compile needs the mods listed on this site;

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25246963/build-error-openwrt-hotplug2

In openwrt's config this needs to be enabled to pull in real iconv;

CONFIG_BUILD_NLS

Some hints from mozzwald;

23:28:12 < mozzwald> here's the script I use when doing a full build
23:28:14 < mozzwald> http://pastebin.com/NSz40thL

00:38:57 < mozzwald> deeice: make IGNORE_ERRORS=1
00:39:15 < mozzwald> should skip over anything that won't build

Also, for now just manually add the scripts from here for working wifistuff in gmenu2x;

https://github.com/engine12/z2-openwrt-scripts/

Storage idea

USB3.0 mSATA adapter (should have USB1.1 fallback)
small/secondhand mSATA SSD (32GB is ~30 euro new)
right connector back to usb
5V dc? maybe it could run on lower voltage .. 3.3 would be nice
maybe some gpio thingy to switch off/on

This setup should give me ~1MB/sec storage, with proper wear levelling. Nice upgrade from the SD storage, which is just ~500kb/sec and has poor wear levelling.

It would kinda depend on the ability to make a replacement for the bottom case. Maybe i can convince some 3D modeller to just clone the case design? hmm

Update

Ordered these ( on 2016/09/04 ) ;

Mozzwald published these;

Somewhere next month i'll be throwing all these parts in a blender and see what comes out.

Links

dump of stuff i need/want to save on http://space.nurdspace.nl/~buzz/zipit/

Pics