Wireless with Bluetooth

[Gort]

Can anyone sugest a mini pci card with built in bluetooth that will
work with a Toughbook CF-M34 I'm looking to upgrade mine to this
configuration

Thanks

[Myself]

The only MiniPCI cards with Bluetooth I've found are specific to a
particular model of laptop, not generic. That's because the Bluetooth
radio doesn't actually sit on the PCI bus, it connects to an internal
USB port.

The MiniPCI spec includes some user-defined pins, which each laptop
maker can define as they see fit. Some use a pin for a
wireless-enable/disable switch, some use them for routing additional
signals from the card, some use them to provide USB from the
motherboard to card-mounted USB peripherals.

Without knowing whether the Toughbook's motherboard provides USB over
those pins, I don't know whether one of those Bluetooth cards would
work.

That being said, here's how I did it: First, order
http://www.neutronexpress.com/prod.cfm/374905/AAEON_SYSTEMS/PERC20UA10/MINI_PCI_4_PORT_USB_2.0_MODULE_WITH_NEC
and pick up a good vacuum desoldering station. All the connectors on
the card are too high-profile to fit in the laptop with the lid closed,
so you'll need to remove them from the board. (The card is obviously
meant for use in embedded systems, not laptops.)

Second, procure a pile of suitable connectors to replace them with. I'm
using 0.100" pin headers in a 1x4 configuration, such as you might find
supplying the PC Speaker connections on old motherboards. Dismantle 4
1x4 female shells, a 1x2 female shell, and 18 female contacts with the
(bulky, stiff, gigantic 24ga) wire removed. Procure a strip of male
pins and some tiny (1/8" or 1/16") heatshrink. You'll also need super
fine wire in 4 colors, I'm using 30ga Kynar-insulated "wire-wrapping"
wire.

Glue the female shells to the *underside* of the USB host controller
board, such that they're not blocked by the steel tab sticking up from
the Toughbook's support structure. Attach a few inches of wire to each
female contact, stuff the contacts into each shell, and route them up
to the top of the board, attaching each wire to the solder pads you
removed the vertical 2mm-pitch header connectors from.

Similarly, reposition the power input on the USB card so you can hit it
with a 1x2 header later. Sourcing power to this connector is the tricky
part, and isn't yet resolved in my design.

Anyway, open up a USB Bluetooth adapter and desolder the connector.
Equip it with about 10 inches of the fine-gauge wire, and twist the
signal leads around each other for interference resistance. Sleeve the
four-wire assembly with heatshrink, then fold a piece of tape over the
radio itself so it doesn't short against the case. Remove the
Toughbook's wrist rest. If your Bluetooth radio fits into the gaps in
the magnesium structure, you're in luck, but I had to remove a bit of
mine with a Dremel. Lift up the touchpad and route the wires from the
Bluetooth radio down into the body rthrough the same hole. Nestle the
radio into the gaps and replace the wrist rest.

Back inside the body, slide a bit of heatshrink up each of the four
wires from the radio, solder the wires to a 1x4 strip of header pins,
and shrink to insulate. GET THE ORIENTATION RIGHT and plug it into one
of the relocated headers on the host controller board.

Figure out where to get +5v for the controller board. This is an
unresolved question in my Toughbook, as I'm trying to be sneaky: Mine
came with the CDPD modem, so it has the front-panel "wireless" switch.
I'd love to use this to enable/disable the controller board, and I
found that it switches power on a 34-pin motherboard header (thank you,
SB300 docs!), but the machine won't boot if this is turned off. I think
power's backfeeding and crowbaring the supply, so I ordered some
high-current Schottky diodes from Digi-Key, I just haven't had time to
mess with it since I got my new job.

I'll put some pictures up in flickr.com/photos/myself248/ this
afternoon.

Note that this approach gives you 4 USB2.0 connections inside the
machine. I'm using one for Bluetooth, and I plan to use one more for
10/100/1000 ethernet, and one more for an 802.11b/g adapter. If I get
really adventurous, I'll lift the pins from the built-in USB port off
the motherboard and wire them over to the new card, thus upgrading the
chassis-integrated USB to 2.0 speeds. I've also considered bringing the
fourth port out the phone jack, since removing the MiniPCI
ethernet+modem has left that jack useless.

More details as I make progress.

[Gort]

what do you think about just taking a USB Blue tooth adapter
disassembling it then configuring a connector that can be connected to
the onboard usb connector
it seems to me that would work if you got the connections rite.
what do you think

[Myself]

You'd lose the ability to connect devices to the external appearance of
the port. USB isn't truly a bus in that respect, you can only have a
single device on a port.

Device Manager shows a USB hub among the internals, however, and those
ports must appear somewhere. One of them comes out on the docking
station, and I've successfully traced it to a few pins on the docking
connector which should be relatively easy to solder, if you're gifted
with 20/5 eyesight and a rock-steady hand, plus a needle-fine iron.

The other ports of that internal hub must appear somewhere. I've poked
around on some of the motherboard headers, but didn't find anything
promising. It's possible that the other appearances from that hub are
disabled until a DIP switch is flipped, though I haven't fully explored
that option. There's a partial listing of DIP switch settings on
toughbook.wikispaces.com in the cf-m34 page.

Now, if we had any leverage to get Panasonic to release some
documentation on these machines, the user-made mods might garner some
press and name recognition. Anyone?

[Gort]

Ok I guess I could just use one of those plug in usb bluetooth adapters
then what MINI PCI wireless 802.11A,B,or G card could I use in my M34

[Gort]

[Myself]

Any mini-PCI wifi card should work in the m34, as long as it's not one
of the ultra-high-power wISP models. (The ones that require their own
heatsinks and have special notes about their power supply requirements
aren't meant for use in laptops. They're right at home in a Mikrotik or
Soekris board, but not a Toughbook!)

The antenna will be problematic, however. The full magnesium shell acts
as a pretty effective RF shield, so you need to get the signal outside
the case somehow. That's why, for my internal bluetooth, I located the
radio under the wrist-rest, since it's the only plastic case part, so
the module is "inside" the laptop but outside the metal shell.

My m34 came with a Sierra Wireless SB300 CDPD modem inside. You can't
get CDPD service anymore (since the analog cellular network is on the
way out), so I removed it, but I left the antenna in place. The
internal antenna cabling comes to an MMCX connector, and miniPCI
wireless cards use a Hirose u.FL connector, also known as IPAX or MHF.
So I did the world's ugliest RF splice, with a solder sleeve, some
braided copper tube, and a heatshrink overwrap. It's good at DC, but
I'd imagine it presents a pretty ugly match once you get into the
gigahertz. That's probably minor compared to the antenna mismatch
though, which is built for the 850MHz cellular band, and I'm trying to
drive it at 2.4GHz. Ewww. I threw a Cisco 350 card in, and it works,
though barely. I have to be sitting practically on top of the AP.

I really like the stock antenna. It's durable, flexible, and
well-positioned. If someone made an identical model, with internal
construction tuned for 2.4GHz, I'd upgrade in a heartbeat. I've seen a
modern m34 with factory wifi, and it has a bulge on the *right* side of
the screen, presumably a 2.4GHz antenna, leaving the left-side swing-up
free for cellular WWAN options. I'd love to see how they mount that
sucker. I bet it involves new metal castings for the screen bezel. Ugh.

A friend of mine, who worked for a wISP and had lots of connectors and
tooling sitting around, built himself a pigtail that was RP-SMA on one
end and u.FL on the other. He mounted the SMA connector in the top left
screen plug hole, so when he wanted to use the wifi he could just screw
on a little rubber-duck 2.4GHz antenna. I like this solution, as it
minimizes the parts-count and uses a commonly available antenna. It
also means that, while stationary, you could unscrew the rubber duck
and attach a high-gain antenna through the standard RP-SMA connector
that's common on APs.

Personally, I'm leaning in that direction. I'd really like to use MCX
connectors instead, because they're recessed and swivel better, both
properties that I think would be important for the physical robustness
of the connection. I haven't yet found a good flush-mount chassis MCX
connector. The first one listed on this page, the FME connector, is
precisely what I'm looking for in an MCX variant:
http://www.tdc.co.uk/cable_conn/index.htm

Also consider that most MiniPCI cards present two u.FL connectors, for
primary and diversity antenna connections. It's perfectly acceptable to
leave one unconnected, but if you have the option of mounting a second
antenna, it can't hurt. I'm looking at the back panel of the machine,
near the audio jacks, as a possible drill-in location. The handle
hardware effectively prevents crushing and impacts back there, so even
a protruding connector would likely be unharmed. It'd be a fine place
to park a stubby duck antenna and just forget about it.

So complicated!
-Myself-

[Gort]

WOW ! that sounds like the way to go for me also oh thanks for adding
that link for the connectors.
I would not have thought of that option.

please let me know how your setup goes and I'll keep you updated on my
project

thanks again
GORT

[Myself]

Yeah, wifi is easy enough. The cards are common, cheap, and
straightforward. Finding a pigtail with enough length between the ufl
and the sma connector is tough, if you want to mount it in the upper
left rubber plug hole. The longest I've found premade is 8" and you
need more like 19 or 20. You might be able to get one custom made. If
you're just mounting in the space where your ethernet jack would be, 6"
is plenty and it's a piece of cake.

I haven't had time to mess with my setup lately, though I seem to find
time to post on this group.. :) Posting doesn't involve jeopardizing
the stability of my everyday machine, though...

[Gort]

I opened up my machine sat and found that it does not have the CDPD
installed. what I was
thinking was I would like to keep the installed mini pci modem-10/100
combo card.
and if at all possable install a wireless 802.11a,b,g card in the empty
space is this something
that can be done ?

[koa...@gmail.com]

There are some all in one mini pci cards that include modem, lan and
wifi.I had a couple in my hands a while ago but couldn't make them
work.Maybe they were proprietary cards.Anyway why not just add a pcmcia
wifi card?

[Gort]

I do have a pcmcia card and if it is possable I would like to put it in
the
place where the CDPD modem would go, so what I'm asking is there
some kind of connector that would inable me to do so.