The ASUS WL-320gE access point is a great product for handicrafts: it is prepared for up to two USB ports. Unfortunately, there is no pre-soldered pin header on the PCB and the case lacks a nice hole for a USB connector. This short howto describes a possible solution.
WARNING: This howto describes modifications of the device's hard- and software. This will invalidate the manufacturer's warranty!
I pondered a long time, howto get the two USB ports to the outside. First, I had the idea to sacrifice two USB extension cables. Therefore, the side with the female jack had to be cut off at the desired position. Then drilling two whole into the plastic case, putting in the cables and soldering directly onto the PCB. Sounds easy and looks... not pretty, finally. So why the easy way when there is a harder solution? ;-)
This harder (but really nicer) solution is to integrate the whole USB connector into the case of the ASUS WL-320gE in a smart fashion. Therefore, I took an old USB extension bracket for PC motherboards and unmounted one of the connectors. Such a connector is somewhat huge and the back side of the ASUS case has not really enough space for two connectors. However, one connector is better than nothing or the ugly solution. So we go ahead.
Compared to other cases, it is easy to open the ASUS case. At the bottom side,
there are four rubber pads, two of them hide two screws. After removing both and
moving the upper half of the case a little bit right, it can be easily put off.
Take care of the little noses as shown it the picture.
The next step is to solder a 2x4 pin header onto the PCB. The holes are filled up
with tin-solder so you have to clean it first. Don't know why, but this was a hard job:
I found myself using a drill machine, followed by desoldering wick.
I'm not very used in doing such things, so it took some time. But finally, I succeeded
and soldered the pin header onto the PCB. With a multimeter I checked both +5V pins against
their GNDs. On port 1 I couldn't messure anything but I could find out, if this is a
problem of my soldering or of the PCB layout. So I simply shortened the both +5V pins.
Now it is time to prepare the case. I took a pen an drawed the outline of the USB
connector on the case. The circles on the left and right are for two screws to mount
the connector. Then I drilled three holes. With a file I transformed the center hole
into a nice rectangle. I did it by hand - it took longer but is much more exact.
After cleaning the case and inserting the PCB, the USB connector can be screwed using
the original screws from the extension bracket. The cable is somewhat longish, fortunately,
there is room enough. Before closing the the case finally, it is a good idea to test the port.
This is the final result:
I used OpenWRT trunk r14063 for testing. While running make menuconfig you have to choose kmod-usb-ohci, either as a module or built-in kernel component. However, this is not enough: the standard kernel module lacks support for the Broadcom USB Host Controller: run a make kernel_menuconfig and enable CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD_SSB ("OHCI support for Broadcom SSB OHCI core"). After compiling a new kernel and flashing it to the ASUS device, the USB port works fine.
Last change: 2009-01-23, [Back]