As I couldn't find it documented here, this is what I know of the proprietary series 4 USB connector. Hopefully people will be able to fill in the gaps:



Unfortunately I only have the supplied PC USB cable at the moment, so that is all I am able to work out.

I'm thinking of buying a spare cable and modifying it.
I believe (with a little slightly fiddly soldering) it would be a trivial job to change it into a host (A) cable to allow attaching of mass storage devices.
If only the host USB pinout was known. Time to buy a docking adapter as well, I suppose.

Thank you pcbbc for opening the thread.

I did an reverse engineering for this port long time ago but never had the time to post it here. Your work motivated me to go on.

ARCHOS seem to make the programmers lifes harder by not being supported in function by the community.
Since that’s a big problem, I thought that we can do something about it:

The best beginning certainly would be a connection to car radios.
We could create different sceneries with the port.
- Connect Audio-Out to AUX-In without any other components
- Charger for ARCHOS
- Controlling of ARCHOS via remote control (either with the original one, or someone analyses the protocol and creates an “own” control)
- An uC changes the remote-signals of the different car radios into the ARCHOS’. There are two options to pilot the IRC-In or use the serial port. By using the serial port I hope that they have some kind of index with filenames, music titles or time informations
- The Audio and Video signal can be exported to Video-Entertainment-Consoles

I hope that many people read those information and would like to hop on the train.
I can make the port-descriptions better (serial port, IRC, and so on) if you are interested.

Here are the ports:



I hope the descriptions are good enough and is an animation for others to work on.

Sorry if my English is bad to read, but you might have noticed: I'm Silesian.

The last 2? pins on the connector are +5V.... The hacker/moder in me was thinking if it was possible to open up the usb cable and using a VERY small soldering iron (15W?) to add a couple leads to pump 5v into the archos. The pins are already in the connector it looks like, I haven't opened it up yet to confirm. This would make it possible to charge the archos w/o a PC or a dock. Most cellphone chargers output ~5v and it would be a quick and dirty mod for some extra power in the car or use a power brick in the house any ideas? I'm just thinking out loud here because I'm a little worried about pushing volts through my 400$ archos that hasn't blown up on its own yet

*UPDATE
If you open the usb cable with a VERY small philips screwdriver there are solder points for EVERY pin on the connector its REALLY easy so add small <30 awg wire to the points to make new cables do i hear mods???? WOOTZ

About your worries: Original powersupply by archos has 5,2V and 2A.
The problem is to confuse the poles.
That's why I would put a secure-diode there.

Thats what i was thinking but if I'm using a standard DC psu it wouldn't matter if i key'd it and dou you think i would have to ground the first pin or put a resistor in there to tell the archos to charge?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I'm sorry but I have no clue and don't want to tell you something wrong.

No, thank YOU for the extra pin outs.

Well on my list of things to do is mod a couple of USB cables into:
1. A docking cable for the car to provide audio out and charging capabilities.
2. A USB input for attaching external devices (no need for docking adapter).

One thing I don't quite understand is that the USB port lines are both in and out? I suppose it's not possible to have the Archos acting as both host and device at the same time, so that's all it needs. However what I can't see is how the device knows which it is (host or device)? But maybe that's because I don't know enough about USB host/device protocols.

Actually you have to tell it, according to the pin out just put a 220kohm resistor on the 1st pin to ground to tell it that its a host i would make a dip switch or a toggle to switch back and forth and keep us posted on the mods

Heh, they already have one of these mods. Its called the Docking Adapter lol. I don't know about you, but $29 for me to hack something up to do something that this thing does already and more. I guess I value my time more. Now if you could make it input and output video along with the features you mentioned.we would have something special :)

Is there any proprietary plugs that fit in these spots?

I believe that the resistor just tells the ARCHOS that the port is engaged to make more logical decisions. Like testing if the USB is occupied or generating the 5V-voltage at Pin 4.

The developers of ARCHOS seemed to have had only one USB-Port and made the best out of it!

I will try to explain the USB-IF with a few words so the pin-assignment is easier to understand:
1.The USB Port is always a Master/Slave system.
2.There is always a Peer To Peer connection between Master/Slave.
3.A Slave can be a Master for more Slaves (USB-Hub).
4.Every Slave gets an ID when plugging in.
5.A host can give up to 128 max.
6.Every Slave - no matter which function - is being identified by the Host when one or both datalines of Slave have a Pull-Up or Pull-Down resistor.
7.Every Host has to at least give 500mA at 5V to the Slave (also the USB-Hub).

After this explanation I will come to the – in my opinion most genius – solution by the ARCHOS-developers:
When a PC (Host) is being attached then the datalines neither have Pull-Up nor Pull-Down resistors. ARCHOS can recognize the voltage at Pin 5. The ARCHOS changes to a Slave.

When a Slave is being attached (HDD, for example) the ARCHOS recognizes that the datalines take a defined state via the resistors and starts to identify the hardware. The ARCHOS changes to a Host.

Now we come to the question: „What happens if both ports are connected?!“
That might happen with the Travel-Adapter. I assume that there is some kind of „grey zone“ where ARCHOS might reach undefined states.
In the manual it says that you should turn ARCHOS on after you plugged it into a PC.
That doesn't work for me because I configured it to be always „on“ when it's in the Docking Station.

It is physically not possible in the DVR to use both USB.

I pointed it out once already to use the serial ports for communication.
Is there anyone in the forum who can tell if the earlier generations already had those serial ports?
Is there a documentation?
Does anyone have have guesses how the port looks like (transferrate, parity, wordlength and so on)?
Is there a command-sample that is being used at ARCHOS?

There are enough people in the forum who can program. And since ARCHOS doesn't allow us to look into the system we might come to a good interface on this way!

Maybe the Moderator(s) should change the thread-title so the developers in the forum don't miss that competition!!!
Maybe it should be renamed „Series 4 Interfaces“ or something.

can someone confirm it?



I'm going to try the usb host mod, but I'm a bit confused...

Acually your wrong, they alternate so....
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 A
B C
D E
F G
H I
Thats is what my fluke is telling me.. if I'm wrong let me know
i used a strand form some 30ga stranded wire and my fluke to test according to the pin out I'm correct the universal ground is right were its supposed to be

tnx, now.soldering time!

hey me know how it goes i have a spare female USB connector laying around here somewhere from my IPOD USB charger mod....

it does not work.

I have tried some pins, the composite video out, the usb host ( I have connetted a female usb , data + to data+ data - to data - , the power to the 4th pin without the 100k res ) with no result, I have a 404...

try the usb host w/ a 220k ohm resistor instead of the 110K ohm one i think thats the main reason i think is the usb cables is saying its not a docking station check it out

http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml

NOT WORK! O_o

look up USB in wikipedia - suspect the ID pin must be grounded to make it a master OTG A- the slave (ie power accepting)OTG B needs the id floating (which I guess the 220k does)

I don't understand where the problem is.
I'm glad that this thread is so interesting.
Sadly, I won't be helping here the following two weeks because I'm on vacation.
But I will passively follow the postings!

See you guys then, have a good one!