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Help modifying an android tablet's hardware (camera approture and speaker)

M

majorburt

Lurker
Hi. I'm new here lol


Anyway, I didn't know where to put this so I'm just gonna pit it in the lounge.

So, I was considering modifying my irulu eXpro X1a 7inch tablet because it was free and so why not.


I'd like to install a new speaker in it as well as the possibility of a new set of cameras as they are absolute crap.

I have an idea about the speaker because it's just two wires literally coming off the motherboard and into the case mounted speaker.

The cameras are gonna be more difficult because they are soldered to the motherboard.

Don't worry, I'm a hobby electronics guy so I know how to solder and how to properly ground myself when doing so.


Anyway, my questions are.
1) can you change the camera without also altering the firmware, or can you change the camera in the first place?

2) same goes with the speaker.
Can I install a new speaker (or even better, a stereo setup using a "splitter" circuit) and will that require firmware changes?

3)what other modifications can I do to turn this $40 tablet into a much better creation?

Thanks for stopping in to read this. And, i hope your all your troubles are small ones.
 
Well, the speaker change should be transparent to the device; however, if you are going for stereo when all there is originally only one speaker, then you have a problem.

It is possible that the keyboard is Weird for stereo and only one speaker was installed. It is more likely that while the processor could handle stereo, you have only a single channel output to a mono amp and you are out of luck.

As for the cameras... Well, you'd need firmware modifications at the very least, and depending on the cameras you are installing, you need to be aware of the limitations of the processor and spring hardware: if the process can only handle a 1 megapixel camera, then a 4 megapixel camera isn't going to work very well...
 
The tablet has a mono output as far as I can tell, but I'm wondering if the signal splitter circuits easily found on YouTube could at least help with going stereo from a mono output. I'm aware that that might damage the quality (my brother is a graduated audio tech), but if it's good enough for the human ear to not pick up, than that'd be awesome.

The camera is actually held on by a ribbon cable for the rear facing camera. I don't know about the front one because I don't want to really pull this thing apart just yet lol.

Would The firmware changes be achievable using a rooted device as well as all the more than capable people here?

Also, thanks for the fast reply!
 
All a signal splitter is likely to do is give you two mono speakers.

Your best bet would be to find out the model of the main-board and see what information you can find on it: what devices use it, what are their specs, etc. You'd be surprised what capabilities your board may have. Once you know that, then you can try to figure out what you need to do to upgrade it.
 
it's a "tzx-723q4" board, but a quick Google search didn't yield too much.

Anyone familiar with them? Or is it just a Chinese Generic board?
 
Actually, don't your standard generic headphones only have two wires coming from the Jack? Then they split into four in order for two to go to each headphone?

Going with this logic, wouldn't playing a stereo song through a standard headphone set hooked up to the wires coming off the pcb that usually goes to the speaker...

wouldn't that play stereo sound? Or did I jump onto the crazy bus there? Lol
 
majorburt said:
The tablet has a mono output as far as I can tell, but I'm wondering if the signal splitter circuits easily found on YouTube could at least help with going stereo from a mono output. I'm aware that that might damage the quality (my brother is a graduated audio tech), but if it's good enough for the human ear to not pick up, than that'd be awesome.
Click to expand...

You'll almost certainly find that what drives the headphone jack is stereo, I've never known one that isn't, because just about all headphones for music are stereo, we're not in the 1960s any more. :) It may have a mono amplifier for driving a single speaker on the logic board. If so, and want to drive two speakers from a low-powered headphone jack connector, you'll need a small stereo amplifier of some description, otherwise things might be rather quiet. Headphone output maybe something like 20-50mW (milliwatts), any more and it could deafen the listener.


majorburt said:
The camera is actually held on by a ribbon cable for the rear facing camera. I don't know about the front one because I don't want to really pull this thing apart just yet lol.

Would The firmware changes be achievable using a rooted device as well as all the more than capable people here?

Also, thanks for the fast reply!
Click to expand...

Changing the camera could be a lot more difficult, there's a digital connection of some sort between the camera itself and the rest of the logic. On PCs it's usually an internal USB connection for built-in webcams on laptops. Tablets, don't know. What do you know about engineering JTAG? And also there's drivers that will be required for a different camera, that won't be in the existing Android build for this particular tablet, and would need a new custom ROM built that included them.
 
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majorburt said:
Actually, don't your standard generic headphones only have two wires coming from the Jack? Then they split into four in order for two to go to each headphone?

Going with this logic, wouldn't playing a stereo song through a standard headphone set hooked up to the wires coming off the pcb that usually goes to the speaker...

wouldn't that play stereo sound? Or did I jump onto the crazy bus there? Lol
Click to expand...
crazy bus. [emoji14]

Those two wires are usually twisted pairs or coaxial... Four wires total.
 
I think I misled you two, mikedt and dngrsone lol.

What I meant was to attach a pair of headphones to the two wires going to the speaker. Attach those to the + and - of the speakers and then find a place to hook up the neutral lead so I can find out if the output of the mono speaker could be made into stereo by the addition of an extra speaker or possibly a splitter circuit.

Sometimes I talk in circles, so I can be confusing lol.


Although, if that is impossible, than its jo harm done. I've known mono speakers that do just fine for tablets as long as the speaker is of good quality.

As for JTAG or custom Rom building, consider me a child on that regard. The best I have is when I dabbled in shell scripting with Linux lol. So probably not much help here, even though android is still technically Linux at the core level.

I'm a hardware guy more than anything. Software seems like fm (f-ing magic) at times lol.

I'd be willing to learn tho, if I could be pointed in the right direction.

Also, I'm wanting to put at least (if I can get more than awesome!) a 4 mp in the back and take the original 2 mp FROM the back and replace the 1.2 mp on the front. That way I end up with a slightly better set up.

This is all depending on what I have. I'd love to get image stabilization and autofocus in as well, but these apertures don't currently allow for it.
 
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