Author Topic: AmbiCom WL1100C-CF Mod Help (Read 10337 times)

darkpadden · « **Reply #15 on:** July 30, 2004, 06:49:22 am »

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i tryed to flash my zaurus with another OS and it looks like its trying to flash to a readonly file system and the Z is just not taking it. i now get the 1st "sharp please wait 2 min" boot up screen and stays there for about 8 mins and then the screen dies and the green mail light flashes.

past that now but still having probs booting my Z its not bricked yet though (i was once, had to ship it back to Sharp)

darkpadden · « **Reply #16 on:** July 30, 2004, 07:08:42 am »

I FIXED IT Card mod should come along as soon as i or someone else figures out where to attach the attenna

omin0us · « **Reply #17 on:** August 06, 2004, 01:21:24 pm »

any update yet? I have the same card and opened it as well, and then proceded to try touching various metal objects to the solder points on both sides of the whit strip (which i believe is a ceramic patch antenna). Nothing really seemed to make any substancial difference in my tests. I then took the small antenna from a wireless PCI card that i had, and stuck a small wire up into the hole where it screws to the card, and touched the wire to the solder points on the ambicom card, and it didn't do anything for me. hmm. let me know if you have any luck.

darkpadden · « **Reply #18 on:** August 07, 2004, 10:53:45 pm »

well no major update yet... iam gonna meet with a friend and see what he thinks i do beleve you are right about the type of antenna but atm u have really no way to do any real testing iam still studying up and gonna do this right but i don't want it work and die out in a week ( but its still a learning trip )... i have toched the end of the wire from the attenna to different parts on the board but with out a real way to test atm i can't tell if its getting better or worse.. iam thinking of removing the said antenna and so... but after the talk with my friend.

we'll figure this thing out sooner or later

omin0us · « **Reply #19 on:** August 09, 2004, 12:41:34 pm »

ya, sounds good. keep me updated

darkpadden · « **Reply #20 on:** August 23, 2004, 04:47:40 am »

well ive met up with my friend and we have no ideal whats up. stumped will keep pics up and hosted (for now ) i might get back to this soon but iam running low on time to spend on this. any of yall have any luck?

Merardon · « **Reply #21 on:** January 13, 2005, 11:41:35 am »

Sorry for bumping an old post, (I'm rather bored at the moment) but I'm sure many would be happy if this was successful. Does anyone know if it's theoritically possible? From the sounds of it, you'll need to do more work then just sticking the antenna on. Anyone with a spare lying around willing to sauder in some wires?

darkpadden · « **Reply #22 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:13:37 pm »

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Sorry for bumping an old post, (I'm rather bored at the moment) but I'm sure many would be happy if this was successful. Does anyone know if it's theoritically possible? From the sounds of it, you'll need to do more work then just sticking the antenna on. Anyone with a spare lying around willing to sauder in some wires?
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Well now old topic getting a new bump. but this time some news

ive done it. its easy so far it works. i used a rp-tnc connector with a tail from an old linksys ap. ( the little white thing on top of the board is the antenna. it has only one wire comming to it (on the left side when holding the card led to you) i sodered the core from the rp-tnc cable to the left pad after unsodering the little white antenna and the outer cable to the silver metel protector for ground for that was the only close spot for ground. so far it works well. iam using a 5dbi ducky my connection with wavemon on my laptop tells me that i have a much stronger signal. have pics but have not went though them to post them yet.

darkpadden · « **Reply #23 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:32:58 pm »

pic of the card top and white antenna removed

darkpadden · « **Reply #24 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:36:28 pm »

a pic of where to solder want to add more pics but don't have space to do it here

darkpadden · « **Reply #25 on:** July 10, 2005, 07:40:29 pm »

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a pic of where to solder want to add more pics but don't have space to do it here
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ok here is what ive learned from after doing this mod, the attn on the card is a one 1wire patch (i found the part on the net one day don't remember where though) its just one wire in this case (dosn't make much sinse to me but hay it works) when looking at the place where the attn is from left to right there are 2 pads the left one is the main one (middle wire for the attn) basicy just soder your lead (in my case cut pigtail rp-tnc) soder the core wire to the left pad and the rest to some ground spot (what i did) the right pad is not connected to anything from what i can see.

more pics to come as soon as i retake them, sorry to keep ya all holding

Da_Blitz · « **Reply #26 on:** July 10, 2005, 11:10:26 pm »

i did an antenna mod as well no my netgear card (m701) which had amini conector already avalible inside that i soldered to. once i find my camera i will post pics up

apart from the connector it also had a big peice of metal with 2 connections to the pcb which i am assuming is a second internal antenna, if it is i might wire a second antenna conector to it so i can have a yagi and dipole anttena at the same time for fun

telemetric_au · « **Reply #27 on:** April 05, 2006, 04:51:56 am »

i just got me a new ambicom, and before even testing it out i couldnt help but open her up too look for the antenna...

then i found this thread

to ive got mine opened and on the desk and the first thing i noticed was on the back of the pcb there are two points which correspond to being under the top of that big metal box,

what struck me about these points is they are named "RXI+" and "RXQ+", sounds like antenna lingo to me...

did some googling and came up with a bunch of stuff related to of all things 2.4Ghz wireless chips.

so after looking at some pdf's related to prism chips it seem that under that silver metal shielding box is the main processor and controller transciever

so it seems that little white ceramic looking bar i the middle must be the antenna.

then i find these schematic data sheets:

http://www.bawia.org/deeptech.html

http://www.bawia.org/smc-2632-2e-schematics.pdf
http://www.bawia.org/smc-2632-schematics.pdf

they actually say down in the bottom right corner of each data sheet "WL11000" !!!

seems a bit uncany but either way, some of the schemtics show antenna's and leds..

but it not that necessary to study those diagrams too detailed as they may be different chips and this white bar is the antenna...

so...

ideally id like to be able to have the original antenna stay there and just have a little lead/plug that goes to the outside of the card casing for hooking to antenna.

this way you can use the low profile built in antenna "normally" and then plug in yourr whip when the going gets tough

does anyone know if having the little lead there (without antenna atached) while using the built-in antenna will affect performance ?? if not will soon find out...

before i can do any more research im going to need a wireless usb adapter for my laptop and an external antenna for the cf card...

but got no money for a few weeks, so if anyone wants to donate funds or equipment to the cause please do !!!

otherwise ill get back here with further advancements

peace.

ps- just checked out msn Hotmail's new competition for gmail, "Windows Live Mail", it %&@#$ sucks, cant get further enough away from windows AHAHHH

telemetric_au · « **Reply #28 on:** April 05, 2006, 06:19:10 am »

just a quick update that i just bought cheap usb wifi for $10 of ebay, and am tracking down an antenna, but if anyone has a spare high gain version let me know ...

telemetric_au · « **Reply #29 on:** April 05, 2006, 06:49:20 pm »

had some thoughts last night about posting info on actually getting the card apart...

its not too easy and there is real possibility of breaking it...

using as thin knife as you can get there's little catch's, two on each edge of each metal plate- top and bottom, i had to kinda bend and force the plates off.

once that's off you just slide the pcb out from the plastic case, the most delicate part is the pcb to cf connector (dont bend this too much if at all).

i hope that once this is worked out the easiest way for someone to do this mod could potentially be to drill/kut/melt a small opening at the right place in the plastic housing...

but it'd have to be done carefully to not damage the underlying pcb, and also to alow enough room for soldering the connection, amybe not possible. and now that i think about it probably better to get that pcb out... well the method for removal can be refined, given the right tool and some instruction...

In other news, i asked around the forums for advice from others who have done this and got back from a helpful chap that you can keep the interenal antenna and use either as desired, the main thing to look out for is making the wire solid/stable enough the it cant move about and fracture off the solder joint most likely taking a big chunk of pcb conductive layering, and in this guys case, frying the card

News:

Author Topic: AmbiCom WL1100C-CF Mod Help (Read 10337 times)