Made possible because of the hard woking people at http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/index.php
thread for this hack is here
-----------Some information you'll need to read and understand--------
SmartMedia Pinout
Samsung NAND flash datasheet with pinout
You may also want to read through the thread listed above.
--------------------------------------Materials Used --------------------------------
SmartMedia/Xd Reader from Radioshack. Model 16-3851
Two flex cables. They need to have .5mm lead pitch, and at least 16 circuits.
The ones I used had 24, To match up the pins on the flash chip.
Molex carries a line called Premo-Flex that will work. Specs on it are here.
Two connectors for the flex cable. These are not absolutely necessary, but
made the job of conecting the flex cable up a little easier.
They are from molex. Part # 525592472
---------------------------------Pics and Information--------------------------------
Click on pics to enlarge
Radio Shack's SmartMedia/Xd Reader
Same reader stripped of it's case
The flex cable I used to connect to the TSOP. Cable has the same pitch and lead count
as half the TSOP. The 2nd pic is actually from a failed attempt of trying to make a solderless
test clip. A little hard to see, but on the contacts toward the middle of the pic are two
rubber-like, one-dimensional conductive pads, complements of a DIGIGR8's lcd mounts.
Thought it might work, but alas, no go. On to the soldering.....
These next two pics will give you an idea of how the cables attach to the chip.
I exposed the bare traces at one end of each cable. I then bent un-needed traces out of
the way. I very lightly tinned the traces, then lined them up to the TSOP and
clamped them in place. Adjustments to the alignment of the TSOP was made with
a small needle. I tried using a variety of means to do this without soldering,
but couldn't get it to work consistently. SO....To solder these down, you
need a lot of PATIENCE! I filed a very fine point on my soldering iron, and
then tinned it, being sure to get all excess solder off the tip. I then dipped the
iron in flux, and proceeded to solder the cable traces, using only the solder
already on the tinned traces and the TSOP.
The cables were then wired to the card reaser using some Zif sockets and small
wire. The connectors had a staggered pinout, making it easier for me to solder.
The flex cable slides in the one end, and the wires shown below go to the reader.
To figure out the wiring, you need to look at the pinout for both the SmartMedia
and the Flash chip. You'll notice that they use the same labels, so you can match
them one to one. ( Take note, I/O pins are labeled 1-8 in SmartMedia specs,
but as 0-7 on the Flash chip. In this case 0=1, 1=2....and so on )
Here is how I wired them from my card Reader.
Pin 2 -- Vss (ground)
Pin 3 -- I/O 5
Pin 4 -- not used
Pin 5 -- I/O 6
Pin 6 -- I/O 4
Pin 7 -- I/O 7
Pin 8 -- I/O 3
Pin 9 -- I/O 8
Pin 10- I/O 2
Pin 11- not used
Pin 12- I/O 1
Pin 13- not used
Pin 14- WP
Pin 15- RY/BY
Pin 16- WE
Pin 17- RE
Pin 18- ALE
Pin 19- CE
Pin 20- CLE
Pin 21- not used
Pin 22- not used
After those were wired, I dealt with the remaining contacts on the reader.
The following pic will show you what I did.
The next two are what the 2 Camcorders looked liked all hooked up.
The SmartMedia reader is mounted onto a breakout board, with jumpers
for the write protect and voltage select. Both cams were able to be dumped
as you see them below. Software used was OnBelay by Compuapps,
ran on Windows XP Pro, SP2. Find it here.
Here are the finished cams with Mini-USB ports installed
Send any comments to camcorderhack[at] gmail [dot] com