Dismantling Pogoplug E02 to run on DC?

[UncleRoger]

I've been working on getting a PP Mobile set up, but the reason I liked that one was because it uses 12v DC as input -- perfect for me as it's destined for use in the car. (Also, because it was cheap and I couldn't find any E02s for a similar price at the time.) But I'm having troubles with it and I did recently pick up a couple of E02s. Opening one up, it looks like it would be a simple matter to disconnect the power cable from the power supply and wire up a USB-style connector with 5vdc to run it in the car.

So, is there any reason not to remove the power supply board and just run the E02 off a 5v cigarette lighter to USB adapter? Of the E02 and Mobile, is one a better choice than the other for use as a NAS (samba) with, hopefully, a USB wireless card acting as a host*?

*My intent is to load up my music and some movies so that the kids can listen/watch what they want in the car on wifi-only tablets/cellphones, so it will either need to plug into a small router or act as the router itself.

Thanks!

[grayman4hire]

@UncleRoger,

I've given this some thought and actually took my Pogoplug Series 4 camping (running off a motorcycle battery) this summer.

Not sure if the USB Cigarette lighter adapter will provide you with enough amps.

You might want to consider using a 12V to 5V step down converter instead - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Waterproof-DC-D ... 1117981188

Also not sure how stable it will be. Chances are you'll corrupt your USB Flash Drive or HD because you won't be properly powering down and unmounting the drive(s).

[UncleRoger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lso not sure how stable it will be. Chances are you'll corrupt your USB Flash Drive or HD because you won't be properly powering down and unmounting the drive(s).

[Socaltom]

It's an idea I considered as well but I found better options IMO,
Virgin mobile and others offer a wifi hotspot that supports a microsd card. With a filesharing app you can watch movies from the ad card. It has 3G, and 4g in some markets. 35$ per month or 5$ per day no contract required. It supports up to 5 devices. There are other services that give you 500 MB of 3G for free with the same device

Another option is a router with a USB port for a shares drive net gear has several,options. They are powered by 12v so adapting the power should be easy.

Tom

[grayman4hire]

You can mount your media drive/partition as read only. Not sure if you can mount the rootfs read only though.

Another option, I was thinking about was switching the Pogoplug to run OpenWRT which runs on the internal flash.

What sort of devices/apps will you be using in the car? Will you purely be using SAMBA to access your content?

I was thinking, Plex Media Server, Logitech Media Server and AirPlay/ShairPort.