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Chumby Parts - RT73 WiFi Card (refurbished)

Replacement: None. We are no longer carrying the refurbished Chumby parts. This page is for reference only.

Need parts for your Chumby? Need Chumby parts for another project? We now carry a full selection of Chumby parts for repairing your Chumby, or for various other projects. These parts are all refurbished, but are fully functional and will be drop-in replacements for your Chumby. We may not have specifications or additional information regarding these parts. They are meant to be replacements and are not necessarily intended for building a Chumby for scratch. Feel free to play with them assuming this limited information.

For sale here is the Chumby One WiFi module. Believe it or not, but this can be used as a WiFi adapter when plugged into a USB port on a Windows computer! Use this for a cheap WiFi adapter, replacement part, or a really lousy paperweight. Refer to the teardown for more details regarding the replacement part.

Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.

  • AF4EX / about 14 years ago / 1

    I bought this RT73 dongle thinking it would work in my Chumby Hacker Board (V1), but when I plug it into the USB it just makes the system freeze up. Also can't boot with the dongle installed.
    Adafruit claims the Hacker Board is RT73-ready, so why doesn't this work?

    • AF4EX / about 14 years ago * / 1

      I found this page of Ralink RT73 drivers, so was able to get the RT73 dongle running under WinXP!
      http://www.station-drivers.com/page/ralink.htm
      Actually, it fired up without a hitch. Ralink provides a nice little utility (RaUI) for managing it too (instead of using Windows WiFi manager). Temperature-wise, the metal cage gets a little warm, but not excessively hot as described above.
      Now if it would only run on my Chumby Hacker Board.
      :-|

  • dbc / about 14 years ago / 1

    Anyone else tried this with a V1 (not Beta) Chumby hacker board? It seems to hang mine.

    • dbc / about 14 years ago / 1

      Never mind... I had to slosh some drivers around to undo some earlier chages.

  • cyberfish / about 14 years ago / 1

    Does anyone know the approximate range of this module in clear line of sight outdoors? Assuming the other end is strong (high power router).
    I'm worried the PCB antenna won't be good enough.
    Thanks

  • Richard Hart / about 14 years ago / 1

    I have mine plugged into the Chumby Hacker Board and it seems to get pretty warm, the Ralink chip reads about 145-150 degrees F.
    Is this normal?

    • Member #100064 / about 14 years ago / 1

      I have the same wifi card (bought it in store, it's the inside of a TP-LINK dongle, the cheapest they had). I opened the dongle and the chip was indeed quite hot. I tried to measure it but my thermometer does not fit it exactly, but got around 65 degrees celcius.

    • dbc / about 14 years ago / 1

      I haven't measured the temp yet, but running on a 5.0V bench supply with a meter, it shows 0.23A without the card, and 0.46A after I plug it in. There is probably a way to cut the XMIT power down, which is probably worth looking for since I'll be running off battery.

    • RobertC. / about 14 years ago / 1

      Sounds too hot. Talk with techsupport@sparkfun.com.

  • ThinkerT / about 14 years ago / 1

    Could this be used with an Arduino?

    • dbc / about 14 years ago / 1

      oops - wrong thread

    • Single T / about 14 years ago / 1

      Potentially, but we would not be able to help you figure out how to make the thing work with Ardunio. That would be cool though, a little snooping around the interenets, there may be some information/datasheets out there to help you on your way.

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