Does anyone know if there is any USB port on any of the various boards in a P1 Series printer, other than the USB-A on the board behind the touchpad which I am aware of.
Also, what is considered the Mainboard or is that even a valid question?
I’m thinking like a PC builder here. Main board being driver and the other boards being driven boards.
Pardon the title. Title is 25 characters minimum.
For what purpose? Power? Connectivity?
Not power supply. Just curious.
While they do not build these printers on an old school Henry Ford assembly line, I figure they build the machines mechanically and electrically first, then right prior to loading it for shipment, they install the OS (for lack of a better term) and I am curious how that occurs.
Most likely the QSPI flash is pre-programmed before SMT. Other possibilities are they use the serial bootloader, JTAG, or if it is an S3 the USB port.
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Well, not sure what all those acronyms mean but still looking for an explanation of how they program a mechanically/electrically assembled printer.
It’s not a printer until the OS is loaded. Before that, just sheet metal, copper and plastic.
Yes, I am aware of that port.
Wondering if there are other sockets on other boards.
No USB host for P1S / P1P, I am afraid. It is the limitation of the main chip ESP32 on the AP board.
I am pretty sure it isn’t ESP32 S3
@Wsquared58, QSPI flash is a memory chip having same functionality like a tiny 100MB hard drive for a old school pentium 2 pc, but it is only about 4MB or 16MB. The interface is Quad SPI (or Quad Serial Peripheral Interface), just like PCIe 1x vs PCIe 4x. This memory chip can be written by the built-in bootloader of ESP32 via serial port (2 pins TX and RX) or directly programed before being soldered on the board. In this case it is just a normal SPI flash chip.
There are heaps of test pads on the back of this AP board, I am pretty sure, two of them are used for upload the “firmware” to the empty SPI flash
@BambuBanker, this USB-A port only provides 5VDC, D+ and D- pins are not connect to anything.
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