Reverse engineering the Blu Studio 5.3 dock port

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lvnr00tddrd

Member
Mar 9, 2012
22
10
Okay. It seems that Blu Products isn't going to explain anything about the dock port on their Studio 5.3, so I am embarking on a project to reverse engineer it. I'll update my progress here.

Pictures of the dock port:

IU7cx.jpg

Zwzvn.jpg

RmsQC.png



Pictures of the plug that fits it. It's the same 30-pin plug as found on the iPod and a bunch of other devices.

1phiv.png

0PAg7.png

GkaOf.jpg

0bZk9.jpg

BIIdT.jpg


(Last 3 images from https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8295)


What I just ordered to work on this project:

zsboV.jpg

jG5VM.jpg


(Again from https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8295)


Here's what I've figured out so far.

The cable from my iPod Nano 6th gen has pins 1, 15, 16, 23, 25 and 27. All others are missing. I haven't had time to analyze it all yet, but according to allpinouts.org, 1 is a ground, 15 and 16 are grounds and are tied together (internally on the iPod motherboard), 23 is USB +5v, and 25/27 are USB Data+/- OR, alternately, they are resistor-to-ground value-based signals.

My theory so far is that there is some internal resistance between the pins in this cable and other pins or ground; because plugging just the cable in--with it not being plugged into the USB port--disables the Blu's touchscreen and automatic screen rotation features and locks the screen in whatever position it's in when you plug in the cable. (Although interestingly, if you plug it in in landscape mode, you can use the screen rotation lock hardware button to put it back to portrait mode.) Plugging the other end of the cable into a USB port brings up the Recent Apps display (the thing that comes up when you hold the touchscreen home button down) and the phone says it's charging, but the touchscreen is still disabled. Not sure if it's actually charging or not; I'm gonna leave it plugged in for awhile and see. The phone does not show up as a new USB device when this (iPod) cable is plugged into the dock port.

Once I get the breakout board I'm gonna take the phone apart and see if I can trace where the pins in this dock port go. I'm also going to wire up a USB cable to the breakout board and see if I can get the phone to enumerate.

Hopefully I never toast my phone. :)

Edit for more pics from teardown:

fWfCS.jpg

d3sua.jpg

RZJt2.jpg

alsVn.jpg

sWrXN.jpg

7uxGW.jpg

2gcuq.jpg

dyUFf.jpg

wKtma.jpg

5swVl.jpg

Notice that this ribbon cable is 3 layers; those are little pieces of a paperclip holding them apart to show the layers.
C6yil.jpg
 
Last edited:

lvnr00tddrd

Member
Mar 9, 2012
22
10
If it IS a PDMI connector, would getting a usb-to-pdmi cable work to connect to the phone? I've never used pdmi. I know the Dell Streak has a pdmi port though.
 

E:V:A

Inactive Recognized Developer
Dec 6, 2011
1,447
2,222
-∇ϕ
You should open it to see what chips are used in that thing. That will help you a LOT to figure out what is going on...
 

warboat

Senior Member
Dec 20, 2005
76
22
Melbourne
If it IS a PDMI connector, would getting a usb-to-pdmi cable work to connect to the phone? I've never used pdmi. I know the Dell Streak has a pdmi port though.

I have both Dell Streak 5 and Blu Studio 5.3 and I can comfirm that the pdmi cable for the Streak does not fit in the Studio 5.3.
The ports on both are the same width and same number of pins but the Streak's pins are arranged on 2 wedges, for lack of a better term, whereas the Studio and ipods are 2 rows of pins on both sides of a single wedge. It's like the Streak has a female type port and the Studio/ipods have male type ports.
 

puppeto

Member
Apr 22, 2012
6
0
This could be some kind of dock connector that Blu has not released for our version. I've been doing some research on this phone to find the original recovery firmware and found that this exact phone is being sold under the following names:

  • Blu Studio 5.3
  • Texet TM-5200
  • Umeox X-Land / X-5
  • Pearl Simvalley SPX-5

On every "rebranded" listing I found they all had this port so it isn't just unique to the Blu. Also might try seeing if anything can be found for the MTK6573 chipset that would include this port. More info on this chipset here mediatek.com /en/Products/ featured_content.php?sn=2 {will have to copy / paste too new to post links yet}.

I've also found other indications through russian and chinese sites that this thing is being pushed in some countries as an iPhone knockoff with a custom "iOS" skin / launcher. Hard to tell for sure due to some things being lost in translation.

So to wrap it all up I would almost go for a crazy guess that this might be used on some of the "iPhone" knockoffs to fake as a 30-pin connector that may or may not actually work or only work for charging.
 

puppeto

Member
Apr 22, 2012
6
0
Now we know. I think I may import one of these to see if it works on the Blu as well. Might be disabled in the firmware though....
 

lvnr00tddrd

Member
Mar 9, 2012
22
10
Just got the PodBreakout board. To the soldering station I go. Send good karma my way. :)

I took the entire thing apart. Everything is under full-board metal shields as can be seen from the recent post-op pic. (You can also see the breakout board.) My phone still works, so I'm not prepared to go pulling the shields off just to see what's under them. I think that the only things would be the MediaTek CPU and some RAM and Flash chips anyway. Everything else is pretty tightly integrated.

Puppeto if you get ahold of one of those keyboards please keep us updated.

Behold the wonders of voiding your warranty:

trdb7.jpg
 
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lvnr00tddrd

Member
Mar 9, 2012
22
10
Ok here's what I've figured out so far.

1. Make sure if you take your phone apart that you reconnect all the connectors inside the phone, or else you'll spend an hour trying to figure out why the dock port won't work at all before realizing what you did.

2. Onward to real research, here's what's been found so far.

Connecting pin 15 to 16 disables the touchscreen, but there is a threshold that must be met that I haven't found yet. If the 2 pins are directly tied together the touchscreen is disabled, and if there's a 3k resistor between them it is, too. But if there's a 100k resistor inline it doesn't disable the touchscreen.

Pin 1 appears to be a ground pin.
Pin 16 is USB ground
Pin 23 is USB +5 volts
It DOES charge when just Pins 16 and 23 are connected. My next step is to find which pins are the USB Data +/-. As can be seen below, it's non-standard.

Connecting Pin 27 to ground presses the hardware multifunction button (bottom middle of the front panel)
Pin 6 to ground presses hardware power key
Pin 29 to ground presses hardware volume down key
Pin 28 to ground is an oddball. Connecting it to ground through a 10k resistor seems to start the music player AND press the hardware volume up key
Connecting pin 9 to ground with a resistor less than 4k causes a white screen followed by a black screen and the phone freezing until the battery is removed.

Audio
Pin 3 - Audio Ground
Pin 4 - Audio Right
Pin 5 - Audio Left
The audio pins appear to be connected to the same lines as the headphone jack, only they don't have the hardware external speaker disable (or if they do I haven't found it yet). Apparently, the headphone hardware triggers a software signal of some kind that disables the external speaker. I confirmed that this is the case by plugging in a set of headphones, in which case these lines still give the audio output but the external speaker is disabled. Apparently this is something that can be controlled from within Android, because there were some bug reports awhile back about the external speaker not disabling when headphones were plugged in. So we need to find (or maybe someone can write?) an app that does nothing but disable the external speaker while leaving the headphone line active.

No luck yet on getting USB working. Still hoping someone here can help me out with knowing how to monitor what's going on by using adb?
 
Last edited:

puppeto

Member
Apr 22, 2012
6
0
FYI received the keyboard, plugged it in, and YES it works. Didn't receive a prompt or anything when I plugged it in. I opened up a notepad app and just started typing away.

I do forewarn you though it is very cheaply made. Not something I would recommend anyone wasting their time or money on. I found it faster to just type on the screen.
 

lvnr00tddrd

Member
Mar 9, 2012
22
10
Puppeto would you mind taking the keyboard apart and taking some high-res pictures of it? It would be very very helpful I think because it will have the data lines and possibly some other stuff :)
 

Hamza Malicho

Member
Aug 7, 2007
7
0
Adobe flash player worked great, however it need some mod
First install MX player then it will ask for special codec, so install them as recommended.
then you need to install UC browser ( try latest version )
Finally install flash 10.3.185.360_armv6.apk from xda
run uc browser, everything fine.
My only concern is Video skype, I couldnt run any version of skype that enables Video call please can anybody help
 

Ing.MiguelSR

Member
Aug 7, 2012
8
0
Hi guys,

As you can see I'm new at the forum, but I have a Motorola Atrix 4G, Rooted, Unlocked BOOTLOADER, and with the NOTTACHTRIX ROM Installed with the Darks Side Kernel....

I also recently bought a Blu Studio D510, and I have an issue with play music...
I tried with several music players, and I'm still not success...

All the type of files that I tried are .mp3 and .wma

Do you know were I need to put the files in order to used the music player?

Thank You...
 

virustwin

Member
Mar 19, 2009
44
7
Can someone please provide the ROM without the bloated softwares(facebook, twitter etc.). Just the barebone os. Reason for this is I can then install apps I want and move them to memory card. More memory available.

Found this link which seems to be the ROM. Can someone verify: http://www.pearl.de/support/product.jsp?pdid=PX3459&catid=4073&nodocs=1

Its not the rom. If you are willing to try some other roms for this device (i cant find a blu rom either), search for either the umeox x3 original rom or the texet tm-5200 original rom. the umeox is in chinese and the texet is in russian but change the language in the options and change the launcher and everything should be fine. I have found the texet to be a little lighter and faster, however, i couldnt get any of the drivers to work for it. umeox uses the spx-5 drivers which windows is able to find easily. Im looking for a rom for the pearl simvalley spx-5 phone which is another clone and uses the same hardware, but i havent any luck yet. right now, though im using the umeox which also was able to be rooted with SOC and its working fine so far.. hope i could help :)
 

wesblood

New member
Aug 5, 2012
4
0
Hey you all can anyone please supply me with a link to obtain the actual stock rom for the blue studio 5.3 or even a custom rom would be of great help thanking you in advance

Sent from my BLU Studio 5.3 using xda app-developers app
 

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  • 3
    Okay. It seems that Blu Products isn't going to explain anything about the dock port on their Studio 5.3, so I am embarking on a project to reverse engineer it. I'll update my progress here.

    Pictures of the dock port:

    IU7cx.jpg

    Zwzvn.jpg

    RmsQC.png



    Pictures of the plug that fits it. It's the same 30-pin plug as found on the iPod and a bunch of other devices.

    1phiv.png

    0PAg7.png

    GkaOf.jpg

    0bZk9.jpg

    BIIdT.jpg


    (Last 3 images from https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8295)


    What I just ordered to work on this project:

    zsboV.jpg

    jG5VM.jpg


    (Again from https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8295)


    Here's what I've figured out so far.

    The cable from my iPod Nano 6th gen has pins 1, 15, 16, 23, 25 and 27. All others are missing. I haven't had time to analyze it all yet, but according to allpinouts.org, 1 is a ground, 15 and 16 are grounds and are tied together (internally on the iPod motherboard), 23 is USB +5v, and 25/27 are USB Data+/- OR, alternately, they are resistor-to-ground value-based signals.

    My theory so far is that there is some internal resistance between the pins in this cable and other pins or ground; because plugging just the cable in--with it not being plugged into the USB port--disables the Blu's touchscreen and automatic screen rotation features and locks the screen in whatever position it's in when you plug in the cable. (Although interestingly, if you plug it in in landscape mode, you can use the screen rotation lock hardware button to put it back to portrait mode.) Plugging the other end of the cable into a USB port brings up the Recent Apps display (the thing that comes up when you hold the touchscreen home button down) and the phone says it's charging, but the touchscreen is still disabled. Not sure if it's actually charging or not; I'm gonna leave it plugged in for awhile and see. The phone does not show up as a new USB device when this (iPod) cable is plugged into the dock port.

    Once I get the breakout board I'm gonna take the phone apart and see if I can trace where the pins in this dock port go. I'm also going to wire up a USB cable to the breakout board and see if I can get the phone to enumerate.

    Hopefully I never toast my phone. :)

    Edit for more pics from teardown:

    fWfCS.jpg

    d3sua.jpg

    RZJt2.jpg

    alsVn.jpg

    sWrXN.jpg

    7uxGW.jpg

    2gcuq.jpg

    dyUFf.jpg

    wKtma.jpg

    5swVl.jpg

    Notice that this ribbon cable is 3 layers; those are little pieces of a paperclip holding them apart to show the layers.
    C6yil.jpg
    2
    Ok here's what I've figured out so far.

    1. Make sure if you take your phone apart that you reconnect all the connectors inside the phone, or else you'll spend an hour trying to figure out why the dock port won't work at all before realizing what you did.

    2. Onward to real research, here's what's been found so far.

    Connecting pin 15 to 16 disables the touchscreen, but there is a threshold that must be met that I haven't found yet. If the 2 pins are directly tied together the touchscreen is disabled, and if there's a 3k resistor between them it is, too. But if there's a 100k resistor inline it doesn't disable the touchscreen.

    Pin 1 appears to be a ground pin.
    Pin 16 is USB ground
    Pin 23 is USB +5 volts
    It DOES charge when just Pins 16 and 23 are connected. My next step is to find which pins are the USB Data +/-. As can be seen below, it's non-standard.

    Connecting Pin 27 to ground presses the hardware multifunction button (bottom middle of the front panel)
    Pin 6 to ground presses hardware power key
    Pin 29 to ground presses hardware volume down key
    Pin 28 to ground is an oddball. Connecting it to ground through a 10k resistor seems to start the music player AND press the hardware volume up key
    Connecting pin 9 to ground with a resistor less than 4k causes a white screen followed by a black screen and the phone freezing until the battery is removed.

    Audio
    Pin 3 - Audio Ground
    Pin 4 - Audio Right
    Pin 5 - Audio Left
    The audio pins appear to be connected to the same lines as the headphone jack, only they don't have the hardware external speaker disable (or if they do I haven't found it yet). Apparently, the headphone hardware triggers a software signal of some kind that disables the external speaker. I confirmed that this is the case by plugging in a set of headphones, in which case these lines still give the audio output but the external speaker is disabled. Apparently this is something that can be controlled from within Android, because there were some bug reports awhile back about the external speaker not disabling when headphones were plugged in. So we need to find (or maybe someone can write?) an app that does nothing but disable the external speaker while leaving the headphone line active.

    No luck yet on getting USB working. Still hoping someone here can help me out with knowing how to monitor what's going on by using adb?
    1
    Its seems like its a docking port for a keyboard. I found this for Pearl Simvalley SPX-5 site found at http://www.pearl.de/a-PX3502-4072.shtml.
    1
    Just got the PodBreakout board. To the soldering station I go. Send good karma my way. :)

    I took the entire thing apart. Everything is under full-board metal shields as can be seen from the recent post-op pic. (You can also see the breakout board.) My phone still works, so I'm not prepared to go pulling the shields off just to see what's under them. I think that the only things would be the MediaTek CPU and some RAM and Flash chips anyway. Everything else is pretty tightly integrated.

    Puppeto if you get ahold of one of those keyboards please keep us updated.

    Behold the wonders of voiding your warranty:

    trdb7.jpg
    1
    ROM for texet 5200

    Hey you all can anyone please supply me with a link to obtain the actual stock rom for the blue studio 5.3 or even a custom rom would be of great help thanking you in advance

    Sent from my BLU Studio 5.3 using xda app-developers app

    There is a Russian device which seems to be identical to Blu Studio and is called Texet 5200 (accordng to some of the threads here in xda-developers).
    There is a site for the device, I found the ROM for download easilly
    XDA won't let me post URL cause I didn't write enogh posts yet:( ,
    Just use google translate to browse through "texet dot ru". If you are having difficulty PM me)
    There seem to be two ROM version, the original and a newer, lighter one from 28.08.2012.
    I did not try it, use at your own risk.
    If you do, please let us know how it went.
    If you look in xda forums there is someone here that claims to have already installed those ROMs.
    Good luck, Hope this helps