ezDV Ethernet Upgrade

[Michael Lizzio]

Mooneer,

 I recently upgraded a ezDv device with the W5500 Ethernet Module as described in the "Appendix: Setting Up Ethernet Support" at ezDV/manual/C-setting-up-ethernet-support.md at c0c7efb3488052ad6be9c9af3ba7c5761bd4a772 · tmiw/ezDV · GitHub

The instructions were clear and concise but cable strain relief for the four (4) wires that are soldered to the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 chip was challenging.

With this note I hope to provide a possible solution that others may find helpful if they are looking to do this upgrade.

Soldering the 4 wires to the chip is not for the faint of heart especially if you're over 70, nervous and jerky and aren't able to see very well but I digress.

I used insulated #32 solid wire to make the connections on the chip. The wire is very fragile so it’s important to come up with a strain relief solution that prevents breakage.

This upgrade can be used on circuit boards that use the 4 pin J4/”12 Breakout (v0.6 & v0.8). For the newer boards (v1.0) sold by TAPR, folks may want to try using the 4 pins at J7 taking care not to short out the nearby resistor, R41.

The header pins from a RPi 2w were used for this upgrade. The header connector was cut leaving two (2) rows of 5 with one pin removed to serve as a key so the plug that will be used later can only fit in one way. Four (4) of the pins are soldered into the holes of the 4 pin J4/”12 Breakout on the ezDV board.  Before the pins are soldered onto the ezDV board you must fold each remaining pin outward. This is the part of the connector that the wires from the ESP chip are soldered to. Connect the wires from the ESP chip to four (4) of the unused pins that are folded out. Solder a wire from ezDV J7 (lower pin) to another unused pin on the new connector to provide the 3.3v and use the J4 Square pin to provide power GND to the W5500 module.

Next wire a 10-pin plug to fit into the pins installed at J4 and solder the other end of the cable as appropriate to the W5500 module. Cut a hole in the ezDV case, insert the plug and you are good to go. Remember to remove a pin at J4 and put a blank in the same pin of the plug to provide a key so it can only be inserted one way. Cable selection and length is up to the builder. For this solution I used a USB plug and cable from an older desktop PC that I found in my junk box..

My apologies if what I’ve written is hard to follow, please drop me a note and I would be glad to discuss further on the K5WH zoom channel.

Thank you,

Mike Lizzio WA2TOP

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for this info! I'd like to add that Ethernet currently only works with the 1.1.0 test builds that have been getting released on GitHub (i.e. https://github.com/tmiw/ezDV/releases/tag/1.1.0-20240726). Once the bugs have been fully worked out, future official firmware releases should have this support built-in. Wi-Fi will continue to work, of course, if you don't want to wire up an Ethernet module to your ezDV.

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

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