USB to IEEE1394 converter

• Video cameras
• External hard disk drives
• Scanner
• Other computers

The smallest SMD size is 0603 for capacitors (Reichelt). All components can be ordered at Digikey. The two FireWire chips by Texas Instruments had been ordered as sample from manufacturer.

Before populating the PCB, check net 3P3 for short-circuits against GND.

Then populate all SMD components e.g. by reflow soldering. Check the nets above again.

Then populate through-hole and edge-mount devices.

After then, Windows will pop up the Hardware Wizard to load an appropriate driver. This driver creates a FireWire stack, that moves data via USB.

• Camera and/or audio redirector
  • The firmware changes one FireWire camera to a USB camera according to USB video device class
  • The firmware changes one FireWire audio device to a USB audio device according to USB audio device class
  • No driver for whatever operating system is needed, system-supplied USB drivers will run automatically
  • Cameras and Audio equipment appear as USB devices (may create trouble with some specialized software)
  • Possible support for FireWire hard disks and scanners in the same way
  • Plug'n'Play using EZ-USB ReNumeration feature and dynamic USB descriptors

• Universal USB to FireWire converter
  • The firmware simply redirects all FireWire traffic over USB (i.e. USB is used as a tunnel technology)
  • The Windows driver creates a (USB connected) IEEE1394 host controller with all devices connected and true Plug'n'Play
  • All kinds of IEEE1394 devices can be used with this adapter (while USB bandwith is still large enough), providing the accessing software does not depend to a specific host controller driver (i.e. Quantum^X will not run with CatMan).
  • The driver is very hard to implement, is there any nerd around who can do this?

• FireWire Isochonous: Maximum USB data rate: 24.576 MByte/s (both directions, three isochronous USB packets of 1024 bytes per microframe [125 µs])
• FireWire Asynchronous: about 4 MByte/s (one direction, data must go byte-wise through 8051 kernel)
• Possibly reversed depending on application or bandwidth usage
• Possibly equalized to 8.192 MByte/s (both directions, i.e. four channels, two USB packets of 512 bytes per microframe [125 µs])

These downloads are only required for cloning:

• Schematic (DataMover interface cannot work)
• New schematic
• PCB layout and population
• Eagle source

This download is required for cloning and for firmware update:

• Firmware for serial EEPROM
  Programming of serial EEPROM can be done with EzMr out of the Cypress development kit for EZUSB-FX2. A special programming device is not required.

This download is sufficient for running the device:

• Driver for Windows 98/Me/2k/XP

Q: Is there a device for opposite direction? For connecting USB devices to FireWire?

A: In most cases, USB over Ethernet is suitable enough. There are different software solutions to solve this problem, consisting of:

• A USB host controller driver (HCD), seen for Windows only, that redirects to any TCP/IP remote host
• A USB device driver, seen for Windows and Linux, that acts as an Application Program stub
• A controlling program that assigns USB devices to the stub, possibly shared, but mostly exclusive

For FireWire, use TCP/IP over FireWire, and you are done.

If you can stick on Ethernet, a Raspberry Pi device can act as your converter, provided you find a way to compile the stub for Linux on Arm9 architecture. That device is also suitable to drive a USB WLAN stick, and thus act as a WLAN⇔USB converter.

Q: Concurrents?

A: For specific USB and FireWire class, yes. Here seen for Digital Video class.

• http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/rr-527950.html
• Pixela PIX-UVCD/U1W

Q: Is software (firmware, driver) available?

A: No.