Serial on MK802 II

[pokey9000]

Hi,

I got an MK802 II to play with the other day, and couldn't help but crack it open. With a little probing I was able to find a serial port, and it happens to have the bootloader and Linux console output. Unfortunately it's a little trickier to solder than on the MK802.

The points to solder are two test points near the edge on the back side (behind the CPU). Ground can be taken anywhere along the border of the board. Tack the wire down somehow as the points are small and might rip from the board easily.



My connector mounting and "case mod":





The 3-pin header is stuck to the top of one of the RAM chips using hot glue shavings and careful application of a heat gun. It's hard to see in the photos, but I had to bend the pins a bit so a connector plug could fit in the cutout.

[Adainair]

Thanks for info.
Good luck

[DogP]

Cool... I thought I had seen this thread before, but couldn't find it when I was looking for it tonight, so I ended up finding the pins with a scope. And of course after finishing the mod, I come across this thread (I guess I missed the MK802 II sub-forum here). Anyway, here's how I modded mine:

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Basically, I put some kapton tape down to insulate the header pin from shorting anything it shouldn't, and soldered the outer two pins to the ground on the edge of the board (for ground, and to support the header). And then I ran some 30AWG kynar wire from the two pins in the middle to the RX and TX pins. Then of course cut a hole in the case for the pins to stick out.

DogP

[robb01]

Amazing soldering skills to do this! Beyond my skill level I am sure.
With the serial console this mod enables is anyone tinkering with an image using a recent i.e. 3.17 linux kernel?
Fedora 21 looks to be a reasonable bet to at least run this device headless until hdmi is available in the mainline kernel in 3.19.
U-boot is apparently working for the A10 but a serial console is required to get things booted and setup.