Support and General Use > Hardware
Sansa E200: Help with remote control
AlexP:
If the port page is too confusing, you might want to think twice about trying to port.
Nonetheless, good luck.
moxfyre:
--- Quote from: Bagder on August 17, 2007, 03:47:05 PM ---If it doesn't work, it isn't supported.
So, join in and make it work or sit back and cross your fingers that someone at some point in the future implements support for it...
--- End quote ---
I'm a recent convert to Rockbox, and handy with an oscilloscope and a soldering iron... I'd love to help figure out the missing pins on the Sansa dock connector and which ones work with the remote :-) The Sansa Base Station offers an infrared remote to control Sansa Players, along with mini-USB and 3.5mm audio out jack. It is $50, which is rather steep in my opinion. To my knowledge, this is the only accessory that offers remote control of Sansas.
My fairly educated ideas about how it works:
* Most infrared remotes transmit signals in some kind of serial protocol (RS232, I2C, SPI, etc.)
* If the Sansa e200 is anything like the iPods (and they certainly are, being based on the same PortalPlayer chips), there will be an RS232-ish serial port with TTL logic levels occupying 2 of the dock pins (Rx, Tx).
If I had a Sansa Base Station, it should be pretty easy to disassemble it and figure out which pins the serial signals go to, perhaps with the use of an oscilloscope. Possibly even just using Rockbox's I/O ports debugging utility, the remote serial protocol could then be figured out, allowing compatibility with the original Sansa Base Station.
Having an accessible "hard" serial port (i.e. not one emulated over USB) would probably be a boon for debugging and porting to all kinds of Sansa devices, as it would allow a serial console to be started very early in the bootloader process.
I don't really want to spend $50 on a Sansa Base Station, though. Does anyone have one, and would be willing to take some high-quality photos of the innards?
Blue Dude:
This is kind of a chicken and egg problem. I don't want to go get one unless it can be used with Rockbox, and yet...
I hope something good comes of this project though. Remote control capability would be very nice. Once you have the hardware figured out I'd be glad to help with the firmware.
One possible problem before you get too involved: the remote doesn't quite have all the capability of the Sansa handheld interface. It's missing the bottom "menu" button and, crucially, the select button. It's also unclear if the remote will support short/long button presses. So you could have the hardware all scoped out, but it could be unsuitable for controlling Rockbox.
moxfyre:
--- Quote from: Blue Dude on June 25, 2009, 09:48:31 AM ---This is kind of a chicken and egg problem. I don't want to go get one unless it can be used with Rockbox, and yet...
--- End quote ---
I see from the SansaAcessories wiki page that one of the Rockbox devs (Jonas Haeggqvist) has tested the Sansa Base Station... maybe he actually owns one, and could look at the internals?
--- Quote ---I hope something good comes of this project though. Remote control capability would be very nice. Once you have the hardware figured out I'd be glad to help with the firmware.
--- End quote ---
Well, I think if someone had the thing in hand and the electronic test equipment, it'd be pretty much a done deal. I'd be amazed if it's anything *other than* a simple logic-level serial protocol. Presumably the base station contains a little 8-bit microcontroller to convert the infrared signals to the serial protocol.
--- Quote ---One possible problem before you get too involved: the remote doesn't quite have all the capability of the Sansa handheld interface. It's missing the bottom "menu" button and, crucially, the select button. It's also unclear if the remote will support short/long button presses. So you could have the hardware all scoped out, but it could be unsuitable for controlling Rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I heard that the remote is pretty underwhelming interface-wise. Mostly I'd be interested in figuring out if it's based on an underlying two-way serial port, which would be a big boon to debugging if it's present in all the Sansas with dock connector.
saratoga:
Assuming it works with the serial interface like the ipods, it might make sense to just enable ipod accessory protocol support on the Sansas. You'd need to make a simple adapter since the pins aren't the same, but then you could use any of a large number of remotes and docking stations with the sansa.
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