USB problems with GBZ

[Charon]

Good morning guys,

Well.... the last few days working on my GBZ project have been pretty frustrating.
I got all the components and I'm feeling like I could finish the project within one day (only need to solder everything together and map GPIOs to the buttons).

BUT there's a big showstopper at the moment:
When everything is connected in my scratch setup on the workbench, no usb device is recognized by the pi zero.
I have to mention that I had desoldered the micro USB socket and solder the wires to the test points on the backside of the board. I tried retropie and the latest release of raspbian, but it doesn't work .
If I plugin a keyboard to the USB port, the LED is dark (looks like it doesn't get any power). So I took another USB hub appart and soldered this one to the pi zero, but the behaviour is still the same.


So my next step was to measure the testpoints, and I noticed that one of them was shortend to ground. Maybe I was to rough when I removed the socket from the board.

Luckily I own another pi zero, so I restarted the whole project from the beginning, in this case I haven't done anything on the sockets, I've only soldered my USB hub directly on the ports and powered on the pi, but the problem is still the same. No USB deveice is working. The Keyboad is working fine on my laptop.

So before I buy the third USB hub start my thir unsuccessful attempt, I want to ask you guys, whether someone else has another Idea, what the reason for my problem could be?
Or do you have any idea what I could test/try in addition?

I have to mention that I changed the USB hub, the raspberry pi, and also the wires from pi to the usb hub. Measuring the voltage of the USB ports, I see that they got the neccessary 5 Volts (~4.9V).

tl:dr: two different usb hubs are not working on two different rapsberry pis

[Lpoolm]

the first hub i took apart i tried to un-solder a few of the contacts after that plugged it in and it was dead?
the second i used my dremel to cut them off and it continued to work after that.
with regards to the dimming light the first time i connected my teensy to usb and powered on all i got was static noise and a dim light from hub?
after taking bits off and adding again slowly i realised i soldered the 4 wires from the teensy the opposite way to the hub.
hopefully you get it sorted! i know how your feeling, i felt i could finish mine yesterday but had alooooot of problems with the cartridge reader and just did that all yesterday, only realised today that one sd card works (a bit) another not at all so its probably not my soldering at fault more sd issue.... Sorry didnt mean to distract from your problem!!

[kakan]

Have you checked if the usb chipset is supported with the raspberry pi?

[Psy128]

I'm waiting for my 3rd usb hub some hubs dont work somthink to do with the chip on the usb hub some are compatible with the zero

[Charon]

Have you checked if the usb chipset is supported with the raspberry pi?

the second one had a GL850G USB 2.0 chipset, the first one had a no specification (china stuff).

Do you know a list where do check it? I've only found this one: http://elinux.org/RPi_Powered_USB_Hubs#Working_USB_Hubs

I'm waiting for my 3rd usb hub some hubs dont work somthink to do with the chip on the usb hub some are compatible with the zero

Didn't know this will become such a pain. i thought in 2016 and with IEEE (and all other kinds of ) standards there shouldn't be a problem with usb host compatibility -.-

[kakan]

Data sheets says it should be supported. Did you try using it before desoldering the usb ports?

[Charon]

Data sheets says it should be supported. Did you try using it before desoldering the usb ports?

No, sadly I didn't
(At this point of investigation I though, after I've checked all cables and measured the volatges it couldn't be anything enlse than the usb hub)
soooo, any suggestions which hub I should order on amazon?

[sander]

I had quite some difficulty sourcing a cheap and small 4 port USB hub. The issue is that the Raspberry Pi Zero seems to be quite picky when it comes to USB hubs. It detects the hubs I got earlier fine but as soon as you connect a keyboard via the hub it just does not show up at all (no output in dmesg or lsusb). However when connecting the same hub to my laptop it worked fine. I found a hub based upon the FE1.1s USB hub IC by Terminus Technology Inc that works really well and does not have the keyboard issue.

Does your Rpi see the hub? What do dmesg or lsusb say?

This is the hub I used:
http://sudomod.com/wiki/index.php?title ... SB_2.0_HUB

[jeffy1021]

Not sure how helpful this is, but I was wondering how feasible it would be to forego the USB hub altogether! Correct me if I am wrong, but one could get by with a single USB connection at any given time.

What it you were to split D+ and D- on the pi to the Teensy and the external USB port and connect 5V to a SPDT switch with one connection going to the Teensy and the other going to the USB port.

In normal operation, switch "on" the Teensy for gameplay.

When you want to load additional games, switch "on" the USB port and connect your flash drive. After the new ROMs copy over, switch back to the Teensy and start playing.

If there was a case where you needed multiple USB devices, switch "on" the USB port and connect a hub.

[Flowlance]

I have the same problem i think. I have spent hours trying to figure out what's wrong and tried 3 different usb hubs, they all work on RPi3, but they all have problems on Pi zero, and i have tried 3 different pi zeroes.
The weird thing is, it did work a couple of times after soldering it on to the test pads, but right now there's no signs of life. I have continuity-checked all 4 wires and they lead to the correct pads, and no shorts.

What is even more weird is that I tried plugging it in directly before soldering anything, and it worked. After wiring it directly, it doesn't work on the pi zero anymore, but still works on any other computer

Following this thread, i was about to make a similar one...