This is the 28 pin SMD (SOIC) microcontroller used in our USB Host Board. You can now use any of the firmware we have for the USB Host board by using this chip on your own PCB design.
The USB Host IC is a Microchip 24FJ64GB002 microcontroller which contains a built-in full-speed USB host controller. This allows it to interface with and control most types of USB slave device – flash drives, keyboards, digital cameras, bluetooth dongles, and much more through the use of our preprogrammed firmware. The IC has a bootloader installed and loading of different (or updated) firmware can be done over a simple serial connection.
The USB Host IC is designed to be as simple to use as possible. All of the complex USB programming is contained in the chip so there is NO USB coding required in your application. This saves valuable programming space and saves you from having to code and debug USB interface routines.
Features
- Complete USB Software onboard. No USB coding required.
- Simple UART and I2C interfaces (depending on firmware loaded)
- Easily updatable software includes {{INCLUDE:usb_host_firmware.tpl}} See Related Products tab for more details on software available
- Easy to update the software using simple serial connection and built-in bootloader
- Works with both 5V and 3.3V systems
Documents
We have 2 wiring schematics available below. The first shows the minimal setup for the chip to function, while the other is the schematic for the USB Host Board which contains extra optional components.
The EEprom on the USB Host Board is not needed for normal functionality. All settings will be stored in flash memory on the chip itself if the eeprom is not detected. The reason for the eeprom on the board is that the flash memory is erased when new firmware is uploaded, so settings will be lost (the settings will go back to defaults). The eeprom on the board avoids this.
NOTE: As of 31 Mar 2015 the chips are programmed to use a 16MHz crystal rather than the original 8MHz
Microchip PIC 24FJ64GB002 Datasheet
Downloading Software to the IC
New software is easily installed over a serial RX/TX connection, so you will need an appropriate connection to your computer. We recommend the FTDI Basic breakout board but there are many similar boards and cables available.
Connect up the Power and GND lines, then connect the RX on the Host IC to TX on the FTDI board and TX on the Host IC to RX on the FTDI Board. You are now ready to install the new software.
To load the new software we use the free ds30loader application. This works with the bootloader on the Host board. Run the ds30loader application and…
- Select the hex file you wish to upload
- Set the device to be PIC24FJ and 64GB002
- Set Baud rate to 115200
- Set Port to your serial port connection
Once you have these setup we just need to click the Write button (just below the Commands menu) and the software will attempt to connect to the bootloader and upload the new software. In order to make the bootloader active though, we need to reset the IC by briefly connecting the reset pin to GND. The reset pin is the pin 1 on the IC.
This needs to be done a short time after clicking the Write button.
See the screenshot below for an example.
The bootloader is an integral part of the code and the chip will no longer function.
The Bootloader program is part of our software anti-piracy feature – we do not make the bootloader program available for download.
