Tuesday, October 07, 2008

How-to: GPS to Dell Mini 9


Dell gets goodies..

Continue reading..


Insert usb gps dongle next to bt adapter.


Steal some power from touch pad..


..and solder USB pins to PCIE slots solder pads.

You could hack any USB device that fits inside Mini 9 pretty easily..

Great job Tom Beauchamp!


Read the full instructions

Via Engadget

Details, News and Links for Dell Mini 9







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10 comments:

Unknown said...

jkk, would 3g card in wlan slot work? and then usb wlan dongle? might be easier than soldering minipcie connector

JKK said...

Kornel, video coming ;)

Anonymous said...

where is video of GPS working in Dell Mini 9 ?

JKK said...

not gps video, but 3G..

http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-internal-3g-to-dell-mini-9-easy.html

Anonymous said...

Hey there... I've got to say JKK, your blog was a source of inspiration that got me doing this mod, so it's real cool to see things come full circle here. I've got a video of the laptop coming on and acquiring a GPS lock, I'll toss it up on youtube tonight.

JKK said...

Great Tom!

Drop a link to the video when ready..

Btw, are you planning a on/off swich? Those GPS adapters use quite a lot of power...

Anonymous said...

This is brilliant! am definatly going to do this mod once i've finally purchaced my dell mini.

Only this is, i'm going to try and get my hands on one with built in 3G from vodafone most likely, so i won't be able to make use of the USB connection on the mini-PCIe.

Could i simply connect it up to one of the external USB ports internally? of course this will render the port useless, but i can easily live with that, would prefer the GPS internally than sticking out the side

Of course i mean doing this by soldering the cables directly to the usb port, any ideas if this would work or is worth attempting?

Or maybe a standard non 3g Mini 9, with a external 3g dongle ripped apart, connected to a ripped apart USB hub, connected to a ripped apart GPS and a wireless mouse reciever... this is gettting silly now, it's gotta all fit somehow.

Not sure how thoese 3g dongles break up atall tho

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

Any news also on an on/off switch for the GPS mod or maybe some software thingy ?

It eats up a lot of battery when active.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Found the solution on Tom's site and it looks pretty neat, but how can I also add a WLAN card there ?
It looks to me as the GPS is being powered up from the WWAN slot (where the WLAN card could have been placed in case the 3G card was in place of the original WIFI).
Can this also handle powering up a WLAN card from there and still work under optimal conditions?
Sorry for the newbie like question.

Anonymous said...

Final rephrasing and sorry for my previous post.
After reading a lot I figured that the mod from Tom for the GPS uses power from the trackpad (this is ok) and data from the miniPCIe WWAN slot.

Final dilemma is:
If I also want to add a 3g and WLAN card in the mix, then where should I place the data connection for the WLAN card ? (after the GPS mod the data pins from the WWAN slot are already used up)

P.S. Treat me like a complete newbie as I am one.

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