Neat pics. You can clearly see the Humax logo on the S50 internal photos.
You can see them on my photos of the interior of the Car Dock in another thread as well.
There's no surprise here that Humax made the device.. I think it's definitely a winner overall, and Humax could be a great partner in the future. I am definitely psyched at the possibilities.
Thanks once again... Nice pictures. I love checking out the inner parts of these things, but I never have been brave enough to take mine apart to look. Though it appears that the S50 doesn't have like screws to take it apart.
Thanks once again... Nice pictures. I love checking out the inner parts of these things, but I never have been brave enough to take mine apart to look. Though it appears that the S50 doesn't have like screws to take it apart.
Don't really need to now since we have photos of the insides anyway. The car dock doesn't really come apart with screws in the traditional sense. The back black part has a locking lip at the bottom near the bottom 3 buttons. There's 2 clips at the top that lock into the back metal/plastic shell thing. Then there's screws, etc.
If you don't have a plastic prybar (I used a lot of zipties to pry up so I didn't damage and ding the thing) then it's really not an ideal solution to crack open.
At least we have a better idea of whats in the cradle though, essentially it's a Sirius Tuner chip, the Baseband and memory (for ID/ESN storage, buffer, etc) are in the S50 itself.
At least we have a better idea of whats in the cradle though, essentially it's a Sirius Tuner chip, the Baseband and memory (for ID/ESN storage, buffer, etc) are in the S50 itself.
We wondered how this was going to work and now we know. This is why no matter which cradle you use it works, because the ID/ESN Storage is on the media player itself. Yet the part that heats up the most the chipset is in the cradle. This would also explain probably why the cradle and the media player has to sync or else it doesn't work.
We wondered how this was going to work and now we know. This is why no matter which cradle you use it works, because the ID/ESN Storage is on the media player itself. Yet the part that heats up the most the chipset is in the cradle. This would also explain probably why the cradle and the media player has to sync or else it doesn't work.
The cradle itself has its own firmware chip, it's an Atmel ATmega16L. I'm sure there's some reason for this, maybe so they can adjust things like when the docking cradle and the unit don't link properly and create a no signal state.
The baseband chip is the heart of the unit, the tuner just brings the signals into the baseband chip. As far as I know the baseband chip does the heavy lifting, but the tuner has to make the signal useful for the baseband chip. I'm not surprised the tuner gets hot though, it probably has to bring up the levels of the signals for something useful, amongst other things. There's a heatsink roughly the size of half the depth and all of the height/width of the inside of the cradle, it's docked right onto the Tuner chip.
I don't think this should make the cradles worth 99 bucks, but I figure (like other Sirius branded products) they make money off this stuff, unlike the 3rd party hardware.
We wondered how this was going to work and now we know. This is why no matter which cradle you use it works, because the ID/ESN Storage is on the media player itself. Yet the part that heats up the most the chipset is in the cradle. This would also explain probably why the cradle and the media player has to sync or else it doesn't work.
This also shows that we are going to most likely have to wait for a "live" portable that some (OK, me too) are clamoring for. The chipset still runs too hot for a all in one portable. I wonder what exactly is causing the Sirius chipset to heat up like that. They have shrunk things down quite a bit but the heat issue isn't quite gone yet...
Again I'm wondering (no, I don't have any plans to steal service!!!) if the ESN can be cloned. They must have protected the ESN pretty well. Does talk about this violate the DCMA?
This also shows that we are going to most likely have to wait for a "live" portable that some (OK, me too) are clamoring for. The chipset still runs too hot for a all in one portable. I wonder what exactly is causing the Sirius chipset to heat up like that. They have shrunk things down quite a bit but the heat issue isn't quite gone yet...
My S50 cradle actually doesn't get really all that hot.. Maybe it's just the weather here lately.
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Again I'm wondering (no, I don't have any plans to steal service!!!) if the ESN can be cloned. They must have protected the ESN pretty well. Does talk about this violate the DCMA?
I assume the ESN is stored in the baseband chipset now. My Kenwood SR901 and SR902 units use a special microcontroller from NEC that requires very expensive programming hardware and still has protection from reading back the data if they don't want you to. [By the way the SR901 and SR902 are 1 and 2G products that has a separate flash chip.. The Baseband probably has an integrated flash section and the buffer is now the separate memory chip.]
I think they've been pretty wise about this situation. Doing such things or documenting it is, as you stated, a violation of the DMCA because it's trying to break a conditional access system.
My S50 cradle actually doesn't get really all that hot.. Maybe it's just the weather here lately.
It's not that bad, but more than what I'd want pressed against my skin say, at the gym. I'm talking mostly about the heatsink in the back of the cradle here. Used at room temp after a hour of use. I'm also guessing that the lights in the cradle generate some heat. I guess time will tell as to what is possiable with this chipset...
It's not that bad, but more than what I'd want pressed against my skin say, at the gym. I'm talking mostly about the heatsink in the back of the cradle here. Used at room temp after a hour of use. I'm also guessing that the lights in the cradle generate some heat. I guess time will tell as to what is possiable with this chipset...
LEDs don't generally generate a lot of heat (They use surface mount microLEDs like cell phones use).. However, yeah, the heatsink is an issue. With better heatsink and ventilation you can compensate. I don't think the design really permits for a wearable widget, but anythings possible.
Right now the chipset is 3 pieces, but 4th Gen chipsets should be something like mid-year 2006 I think. They went from 11 chips (Gen 1) to 6 (Gen 2), to 5 (Gen 2.5), to 3 (Gen 3)..
We wondered how this was going to work and now we know. This is why no matter which cradle you use it works, because the ID/ESN Storage is on the media player itself. Yet the part that heats up the most the chipset is in the cradle. This would also explain probably why the cradle and the media player has to sync or else it doesn't work.
The cradle itself has its own firmware chip, it's an Atmel ATmega16L. I'm sure there's some reason for this, maybe so they can adjust things like when the docking cradle and the unit don't link properly and create a no signal state.
The baseband chip is the heart of the unit, the tuner just brings the signals into the baseband chip. As far as I know the baseband chip does the heavy lifting, but the tuner has to make the signal useful for the baseband chip. I'm not surprised the tuner gets hot though, it probably has to bring up the levels of the signals for something useful, amongst other things. There's a heatsink roughly the size of half the depth and all of the height/width of the inside of the cradle, it's docked right onto the Tuner chip.
I don't think this should make the cradles worth 99 bucks, but I figure (like other Sirius branded products) they make money off this stuff, unlike the 3rd party hardware.
--Droo, @Network
if you dig through the pc software install for the S50 the help txt says that firmware updates for the docks will be loaded on to the s50 and downloaded to the docks at next use. So they clearly intend for it to be a possibility to adjust something in the docks.
How'd ya find these. I try to search but can never find on the fcc site? I'm wondering if there is a written report to go with the pics- I'm wondering if we can pick out an chip numbers (i cant read much of the pcis- wonder if they did that on purpose?)
Also- THe system files on teh s50 have a bunch of things with xena in the name- I guess that was it's secret squirrel code name or something?
How'd ya find these. I try to search but can never find on the fcc site? I'm wondering if there is a written report to go with the pics- I'm wondering if we can pick out an chip numbers (i cant read much of the pcis- wonder if they did that on purpose?)
Also- THe system files on teh s50 have a bunch of things with xena in the name- I guess that was it's secret squirrel code name or something?
I used the FCCID Search and searched for O6Z S50 .. There is a written report by a testing company that did compliancy testing for the devices. It's on the same pages..
Xena is the project name that later became the device, I'd wager.
STA240 is the Baseband chip inside the S50, STA210 is the tuner chip inside each dock.. THose 48 pin TSOP package chips are just memory. There's some other microcontrollers (like the ATmega in the cradle) but it's all relatively straightforward.
S50: Internal Photos - FCC Provided
Linear Mode
