Going without the USB hub

[BadBert]

How about this one here on amazon or on ebay.

Sweex US012. It is cheap and really tiny, if you remove the case.

Anyone knows if this one will work?

[Fleder]

How about this one here on amazon or on ebay.

Sweex US012. It is cheap and really tiny, if you remove the case.

Anyone knows if this one will work?

It does. Or else i would not have recommended it. I use it on my project.
http://sudomod.com/wiki/index.php?title=GBZ_Usb_Hub

[alien0matic]

I got one of those Octopus Hubs and it works great. You doesn't even have to desolder those bulky ports.

[Flowlance]

Here's a question that could work around the hub while using the Teensy or similar: Is it possible to hard wire the Teensy to the Pi using the pads, leaving the USB port free to be the external port? I can't see why that wouldn't work but I'm still pretty new to fiddling with electronics. What would the advantages and disavantages be, if any?

I tried that. It didn't work. It rebooted the pi immediately when plugging in anything. I think the usb hub has more to it than just wiring multiple ports. Probably sending different instructions from different devices to the computer.

[the antithesis]

I tried that. It didn't work. It rebooted the pi immediately when plugging in anything. I think the usb hub has more to it than just wiring multiple ports. Probably sending different instructions from different devices to the computer.

Quite right. I have a cheap hub from Big Lots and it has a MA8601 chip, which is just called a USB 2.0 High Speed 4-port hub controller on it's data sheet, and a crystal for timing, I guess.

The interesting thing is the board for this cheap USB hub has a place for adding power and the data sheet says it can take 5V. I'll have to see if I can use it since it is very compact and was much cheaper than a powered USB hub. Pity Big Lots doesn't have them anymore.