[drenner99]

Here are some pictures I took after disassembling my Pandigital Planet. Can't say I know what I am looking at regarding the board. Easy enough to do by removing the four rubber plugs on the unit's back to be able to remove 4 small phillips screws. The faceplate unsnaps from the back at several places around the perimeter of the split on the sides. It was easiest to get started in the corners, and I used a small flat head screwdriver to help separate the halves. There are ribbon connectors for the screen on the right side (with unit facing up.) Once the two halves are fully unsnapped, lay the unit on a table with the screen side up and Pandigital logo at top. As if opening a book from the back,
carefully turn the top half of the unit over from left to right to place the screen side down while keeping its right edge close to the back, since this is where the ribbon connector for the screen is located. If you see wiring on the lower left side as you are starting to turn the screen over, this is wiring for the speaker which is loose inside a pocket in the back and should just dangle there as the unit is opened further. I was going to attempt to remove the screen that is held in place by 4 screws and small metal retainers, but it also is held in several places by plastic tabs that I did not want to mess with. There appears to be a couple of labels obscured by the ribbon connector that I wanted to include in the pics, but could not get to them.

Anyone wanting to open up their unit should easily be able to do so with some care.


Pics

[balrogbob]

Thank you very much. unfortunately, the info i need is next to the processor itself, which appears to be on the other side of the board. thank you for the pics and info, as well as the risk you took taking it apart. I might have to gut it myself to get the board revision. if i flash the wrong kernel, it might be a lovely brick. altho, this board should have working recovery... supposedly anyway.

[Mark Adams]

Here, allow me to hotlink those pictures. Thanks (+1) Drenner99:











Well, there's the batter for anyone to compare to the original PDN.

[balrogbob]

Man. further looking at those photos got me thinking. that is so obviously a phone board. heh. I have high hopes for those kernel sources I found. Just wish I had more experience compiling linux kernels.....

+1 to drenner99 once more for taking the plunge.

[Mark Adams]

Why do I have a feeling you're about to Get Experienced?

[balrogbob]

Mark Adams, on 17 June 2011 - 07:16 AM, said:

Why do I have a feeling you're about to Get Experienced?

... lol.

[r00t]

Thanks drenner99 for posting these photos.

I just received my Planet this week and hope to start playing with it soon.

[fukxou]

Thanks for the pictures. Definitely confirms the battery is smaller than the WPDN...

[balrogbob]

fukxou, on 17 June 2011 - 10:58 AM, said:

Thanks for the pictures. Definitely confirms the battery is smaller than the WPDN...

physically, yes. it actually has nearly double the juice.

[boricuita]

Actually the battery power is about the same, a little more than double the miliampere-hour rating,3400 vs. 1600 but half the voltage, 3.7 vs 7.4.

[oleskool]

boricuita, on 18 June 2011 - 02:08 PM, said:

Actually the battery power is about the same, a little more than double the miliampere-hour rating,3400 vs. 1600 but half the voltage, 3.7 vs 7.4.

Well it is slightly more powerful, that's as easy as p/i|e to figure out, right boricuita

[balrogbob]

I try to stay ignorant of the witchcraft that is electical terminology. It had a bigger number of the juice amount. I thought that a smaller number of the other stuff meant it gave it out in smaller portions of electron-based magic sauce.

[Sixr]

balrogbob, on 19 June 2011 - 04:22 AM, said:

I try to stay ignorant of the witchcraft that is electical terminology. It had a bigger number of the juice amount. I thought that a smaller number of the other stuff meant it gave it out in smaller portions of electron-based magic sauce.

Watt?

12580 vrs 11840 so the new has a wee bit more mojo.

[my2pdp]

I also took some pics... here's the ones from the top side. FYI looks like 2x Hynix 128MB modules for 256MB RAM. Looks like room for another NAND? FLASH though. I haven't had a chance to look up all the part numbers yet.

Pics are about 2-3MB.

Album @ http://imageshack.us...9/topback1.jpg/

Individual pics...
http://img191.images...4567/opened.jpg --- opened
http://img97.imagesh...167/backrvo.jpg ---- back side pcb
http://img819.images...19/batteryn.jpg - battery
http://img215.images.../7629/top1i.jpg ---- top side pcb
http://img12.imagesh...6995/top1bo.jpg ----- memory/NAND/cpu
http://img849.images...485/topback.jpg -- wifi/codec/misc
http://img39.imagesh...26/topback1.jpg --- 2nd pic of above

PS Sorry to hear about your PDP Balrogbob.

This post has been edited by my2pdp: 22 June 2011 - 07:59 PM

[droidee]

pardon my ignorance but how do u recognize this hynix (H5PS1G63EFR-S6C) is a 128 mb module?

[balrogbob]

my2pdp, on 21 June 2011 - 08:48 PM, said:

I also took some pics... here's the ones from the top side. FYI looks like 2x Hynix 128MB modules for 256MB RAM. Looks like room for another NAND? FLASH though. I haven't had a chance to look up all the part numbers yet.

Pics are about 2-3MB.

Album @ http://imageshack.us...9/topback1.jpg/

Individual pics...
http://img191.images...4567/opened.jpg
http://img97.imagesh...167/backrvo.jpg
http://img819.images...19/batteryn.jpg
http://img215.images.../7629/top1i.jpg
http://img12.imagesh...6995/top1bo.jpg
http://img849.images...485/topback.jpg
http://img39.imagesh...26/topback1.jpg

PS Sorry to hear about your PDP Balrogbob.

Frack. Thnx for the pics of the top side, it confirms my fears. This is not an amilogic reference board. Its a custom board with the amilogic 8726m SoC. So they're source may not work. Its manufacture date is 2 months later than the amilogic reference boards, it does only have 256 ram, no gps assist modules, so even if i could modprobe the drivers, we are missing 3 or 4 optional components to allow the gps in the SoC to operate. its also a newer revision, v1.6 compared to V1.1 in the ramosw10 and other AML ref board based devices, so its likely the firmwares from those devices would fail to load as well. (that was an option I was pursuing.) I do have the kernel config from the PDP, so if nothing else, we should be able to hack something together. All is not lost. But this does clarify things for us alot. Thank you for risking your unit in the name of SCIENCE!!! my2pdp

This post has been edited by mrsburnout: 21 June 2011 - 10:34 PM
Reason for edit: Edited profanity. Please keep it pg-13. Thanks. ;-)

[my2pdp]

droidee, on 21 June 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

pardon my ignorance but how do u recognize this hynix (H5PS1G63EFR-S6C) is a 128 mb module?

droidee,

The Hynix part referenced above is a 64Mx16 DRAM. This is in bits, so to get MB(MiB) we do 64M * 16 / 8 to get 128 MiB. Bytes = 8 bits.

[my2pdp]

balrogbob, on 21 June 2011 - 10:31 PM, said:

Frack. Thnx for the pics of the top side, it confirms my fears. This is not an amilogic reference board. Its a custom board with the amilogic 8726m SoC. So they're source may not work. Its manufacture date is 2 months later than the amilogic reference boards, it does only have 256 ram, no gps assist modules, so even if i could modprobe the drivers, we are missing 3 or 4 optional components to allow the gps in the SoC to operate. its also a newer revision, v1.6 compared to V1.1 in the ramosw10 and other AML ref board based devices, so its likely the firmwares from those devices would fail to load as well. (that was an option I was pursuing.) I do have the kernel config from the PDP, so if nothing else, we should be able to hack something together. All is not lost. But this does clarify things for us alot. Thank you for risking your unit in the name of SCIENCE!!! my2pdp

Np on getting the pics. I still have to look over what's on this but hopefully the footprint for the GPS chips are there. I'm really interested if we can get GPS working on this. The top side pcb picture has a silkscreen saying "AML8726-M-MID-REF-B-PD-V1.6" with the date code 110407 so I agree that its not the same as the other boards but it is still based on a reference board, right? Albeit a later version. I'll have some time this weekend to look over the chips & footprints. What components do you think are missing? (hopeful that it's not going to cost $$$)

Thanks for your work on the software front.

[Spz0]

Just an update: Heres the FCC official hardware list (incl. pics).

https://fjallfoss.fc...7ZIY-R70A200%27

This post has been edited by Spz0: 21 July 2011 - 06:41 PM

[redhat]

i just bought one of these this weekend, so far ive done the wifi mod and flashed open pdp v2.
ive also been working on a way to upgrade the ram in this to 512mb or 1gb, whatever chips i can get ahold of will be what i use.
i will try to update this whenever i get this done.