How to build your own Ultrabay Plus device

The Ultrabay Plus Device Carrier is basically a tray with a proprietary USB 1.1 connector. Hence it should in theory be possible to transform any USB 1.1 device into an Ultrabay Plus device that can be used together with the Ultrabay Plus Device Carrier.

It looks like the connector of the UltraBay Plus Device Carrier's connector is very simular to the one used for the UltraPort.

By studying the markings on the connector for the numeric key pad the pins on the Device Carrier look to be the following: (Left to Right) (1) 'SG' Ground?, (2) Not used, (3) 'V' Voltage, (4) Not used, (5) 'G' Ground, (6) 'D+', (7) 'D-', (8) 'G' Ground, (9) Not used, (10) Not used, (11) Not used, (12) Not used, (13) 'SG' Ground?.

(2009.07.03)

After some experiments made on a Device Carrier the theories mentioned above is proven true. The only exception is pin 1 and 13. Those pins are connected together but they dont have anything to do with the actual USB connection.

A dissasembled Device Carrier does not contain anything else of functional interests than a tapecord and a SOic8 from national semiconductor. The chip (based on backprint and wiring) is a LM3525, USB Power Switch and Overcurrent Protection circuit. After resistance measurements between the chip and the Device Carriers port the "USB +5V" (pin 3) and "USB Ground" (pin 8) was proven true. The actual data (D+ and D-) never travels throug the chip. D+ and D- was connected as the theory above mention.

A corded USB female connector was soldered to the actual port on the Device Carrier and a memorystick was plugged in for testing. The soldering was done as follows:

(3,5,6,7 is pins counted from left to right on the deviceport, color is the actual color of the USBwire/female-connector and the letters in pharentesis is the corresponding characteristics of the USB component)

3. red (+5V)

5. black (ground)

6. green (data+)

7. white (data-)

Pin 1. and pin 13. was never used. A theory however would be that they might be for shielding purposes(?) with SG standing for Shielding Ground. However, this statement has yet to be proven.

The A30p recognized the device carrier and the memorystick. Both reading and writing was made to the memorystick without any problem. A picture was opened, edited and saved from the memorystick and one MP3 file was played from the memorystick.

The device Carrier was plugged in to an A30P with WindowsXP SP3. Using the Ultrabay plus for its USB abilities on a Linux machine was not tested.