I bought an oasis cover while they were on sale to do a destructive teardown.

[coplate]

When I first saw the 5 pins of the oasis cover, I assumed that it talked to the main oasis over usb.

I thought maybe that would be a way to hook it up to the PC too.

So I saw them for $10 on amazon wearhouse, I thought I would do a teardown.

I do not recommend people do this.

The big takeaway is that the battery is extremely flimsy, they made it super thin, and it bends very easily.

There is no chance I would try to charge it up after this, even if I had an oasis to use it with.

The back of the logic board is blank, with what look like pin test points.

I don't have a microscope to identify the chip, the letters are too small for me.

I have a USB cable I stripped the ends off, and tried to attach to these pins.

In some combinations my computer would tell me that the USB device could not be used, but I was not able to get anything that said it could be used.

I have at least positive identified the GND pin as being the top one, so its usually a save assumption to say PWR is the bottom pin.


http://imgur.com/a/8hkLc

So if anyone wants me to try something that I am capable of, I'm happy to.

[knc1]

At a quick guess:
P- Power negative (both)
TH - Thermistor
SCL - Serial clock
SDA - Serial data
P+ Power positive
NC - no connection

Not USB -
Try I2C (batteries often are).
And most likely, referenced to P- (negative ground system).

Also -
Check out geekmaster's posts on battery teardown and replacement with non-Amazon batteries.

If you had a jail broken Oasis to plug it into -
There are standard cli tools for reading the I2C devices installed in the system.

[coplate]

Yeah, the connection to the battery itself has 8 pins, but the connection from the kindle only has 5.

I think that chip I can't identify sites between the kindle and the battery. the 5 pin connector is what I think may be USB, and the SDA, SCL etc are used by that chip to identify a valid battery.

My guess is that either the kindle, or the cover, shows up as a usb gadget on the other one, and charges that way; But it totally could pass some of those lines over instead, the TH, SCL, SDA would give the right number of pins.

Unfortunately, unless someone is able to get a serial connection of some sort on the oasis and confirm with log files while it is connected, I'm not sure that wil be possible.
..
..

Actually, does the ;dm command dump kernel messages?

If so we could ask someone to connect the cover, disconnect it, and then run ;dm, and show us the files. See if there is anything in there about how it is connecting.

[knc1]

In the USA, a Li-Ion (or Li-Polymer) battery includes its battery management (protective micro-controller) chip.
So it has to have its own, since it can be unplugged from the device (and that device's battery management).

I don't see any reason why it would have a communications media conversion, the SoC has plenty of I2C ports.

[Hzj_jie]

In case anyone still care about the first gen oasis, using 5v against the top-most (gnd) and the bottom pin (vcc) can charge the device. But the device won't show any charging signal.

I previously thought it would just be a micro-usb port, but then realized the charging case itself had no usb port. So likely the middle three pins are either for charging the case or negotiating between the reader and the charging case to decide which one supplies power.

Since now the charging case cannot be sourced anymore, building a docker with a usb port would be beneficial. I made one with two magnets + two pogo pins + a piece of plastic + a usb cable + some hot glue.

[mrk]

Originally Posted by Hzj_jie

In case anyone still care about the first gen oasis, using 5v against the top-most (gnd) and the bottom pin (vcc) can charge the device. But the device won't show any charging signal.

I previously thought it would just be a micro-usb port, but then realized the charging case itself had no usb port. So likely the middle three pins are either for charging the case or negotiating between the reader and the charging case to decide which one supplies power.

Since now the charging case cannot be sourced anymore, building a docker with a usb port would be beneficial. I made one with two magnets + two pogo pins + a piece of plastic + a usb cable + some hot glue.

Waking up this thread as I’ve got a new first-gen Oasis cover that I think the battery is just sleeping. I get an error message on my Kindle that the cover is not connected properly and the battery shows at 1%. Any ideas on what pins on the COVER that I can apply GND and power to help wake it up? Thank you!