Launch Rockbox without battery.

[JoChn]

Hi!
it can be a Rockbox issue, and little help to me.
OK. Let me explain. Few days ago I clean up (physically) my Sansa e260 and the battery became a little bit fat. I don't want to buy not original battery to player, so I thought "So maybe I can tranform my portable player into stationary tool that can monitor CPU Usage, HDD Usage, maybe I can control the cooling fans inside PC, maybe even display some infos directly from the games, like Logitech G15 keyboard! Or even more! Maybe sky is the limit!". So yeah, I've done very small, let's say "research" and check if Sansa can start without battery. And the answer is "Yes, but not on the Rockbox". Original firmware starts when just plug USB to player, and it becomes "Connected". On the Rockbox situation is a bit different, because it starts, but after few seconds "Shutting down" is visible, then restart and so on, but! When I plugged USB cable with battery and when Rockbox starts to "USB Keypad Mode: Multimedia", then you can remove battery and Rockbox still works (you can play/pause, click Next/Previous, control the volume). Unfortunately after PC restart, whole procedure with battery need to be done.

Soooo, what do you think?

[saratoga]

Assuming you mean an e200v1, you can probably just put the shut off voltage in this file to zero and then recompile:

http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=blob;f=firmware/target/arm/sandisk/sansa-e200/powermgmt-e200.c;h=6b7a47b74d01e1a3ab02073a0347365c2ef12498;hb=HEAD

[JoChn]

Yes, I have Sansa e200 v1.
Ok, I will give it a try. But there is one more thing. Can I launch some applications on the Rockbox while plug-in mode?

[saratoga]

You can set rockbox to run a plugin automatically on start:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=26342.0

[__builtin]

Can I launch some applications on the Rockbox while plug-in mode?

You can access the playback control menu if the plugin supports it, but that's pretty much it. Rockbox doesn't have the best multitasking capabilities (though it does support multithreading).

[JoChn]

So, is it possible to get infos from Windows? Like CPU Usage or (it will use bidirectional connection) to display and modify speed of the fans?

[saratoga]

In theory, although as currently designed out USB stack can't do that.

[__builtin]

I'll put in a shameless plug for my "Duckyscript" plugin at this point. It has your device emulate a USB keyboard, and allows you to send scripted keystrokes to the computer:

http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1212/

You can use it to automate tasks such as running programs (on the computer) to change fan speed, or launch a task manager instance, etc.

For example, this script would launch a run dialog and run taskmgr.exe:

Code: [Select]

GUI r
STRING taskmgr.exe
ENTER