Nes cart Pi USB hub woes

hendrix

Hi guys and girls.
I'm currently being highly unoriginal and building a pi zero w into a NES cartridge. I've got everything installed and have decided to use a generic SNES USB controller from ebay. When connected direct to the pi there's no issues and it works great. Fine for 1 player.
However, I want to set up as 2 player but I'm now on my 4th hub (all ebay specials - one is an OTG type) and still can't find anything that works. The controller is just not recognised when the pi boots.
Does anyone have any pointers? Obviously it has to be small to fit into the NES cart.
Thank you in advance.

dankcushions

@hendrix maybe not enough USB power to power your (presumably) unpowered hub? could try max_usb_current=1 in config.txt as per http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/51306

hendrix

Thanks, Dankcushions

Will give that a try later and report back.

The OTG hub I did use to power the pi also didn't work but willing to try anything to get it working.

One of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/4-port-Micro-USB-Host-OTG-Hub-Adapter-For-Raspberry-Pi-Zero/162100758917

hendrix

Nope...tried the suggestion and still not working :(

edmaul69

@hendrix i use the rockband usb hubs in the nes carts. If you use a pi zero you need to convert it from standard usb to micro usb. It has to be the ones that are 4 ports in a row and not the self powered ones. They work great for me.

hendrix

@edmaul69 Superb, thanks for the tip....do you have a link?

edmaul69

@hendrix here is one ebay example of the one you want. Notice on the right side of the vi-power there is one row of small text. If it has two rows and a huge 4 then you dont want it. The one with the huge 4 is the powered hub version.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/Rock-Band-USB-2-0-4-Port-Hub-VP-H209B-ViPower-for-PS3-XBox-360-Wii-Fun-Games-/172568946926?hash=item282de928ee%3Ag%3A3o8AAOSwSlBYwhka&_trkparms=pageci%253Aed510fbe-130b-11e7-b48f-74dbd18097bc%257Cparentrq%253A10a2dcb215b0a624b91a254cfff76edf%257Ciid%253A24

edmaul69

@hendrix also if you look here you can see how i laid out the hub, hdmi and power.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2583/my-sony-pistation-1-and-super-mario-bros-zero-cart/3

hendrix

Holy moly that's impressive. Love it!!
Thanks for the heads up on the hub too.
Will get one ordered asap!!!
I've just had an amazon basics hub delivered too a confirm that works too.
Case closed - the pi Zero is a fussy bugger haha

BigC

Hello, i just happen to have the same issue. i know that some unpowered hubs works and others like some on ebay, don't. my issue is i decided to build a couple of these for myself, friends and family but since i have ordered a bunch of these i'm kinda stuck with them. is there really no work around to fix this? the hubs are working perfectly fine on my computer, i give it a max load to see if it was some kind of buffer issue or something, but i was charging 2 device while transferring stuff from one usb drive to an other all connected to the hub. there was no issues. i have one or 2 other kind of hub that works, but it would be good if i could use those i have already ordered.

any help is welcome

Thanks

hendrix

Hi Big C
unfortunately, like you, I am lumbered with several 'working' USB hubs which do not work with the zero.
Try the one suggested by edmaul or the Amazon basics one I suggested. These do work.
As for the reasons others don't. I'm assuming its something to do with the hub chipset??

edmaul69

@hendrix @BigC also usb 3.0 hubs dont work on any pi if i remember correctly so you definitely want to avoid them.

BigC

@hendrix Oh well i'll have to find a use for them. i found cheap ones at walmart for 10$ so that will be that

@edmaul69 yeah i'm using usb 2. my goal was to get a cheap hub and the usb 3 are rather exempensive for the use ;)