Is the USB hub necessary?

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greenols
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Is the USB hub necessary?

Post by greenols » Sat May 20, 2017 11:15 pm

I am building a GBZ and my PCB doesn't have a usb hub. What are the uses for one? Would it work without one?

Thanks,
~Greenols

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VeteranGamer
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Re: Is the USB hub necessary?

Post by VeteranGamer » Sun May 21, 2017 12:04 am

greenols wrote:
Sat May 20, 2017 11:15 pm
I am building a GBZ and my PCB doesn't have a usb hub. What are the uses for one? Would it work without one?

Thanks,
~Greenols
you've double posted (i dont know why)

you only have one usb port on the pi zero/zero w...

if you use a teensy, leonardo or any other controller that will use up that port leaving you nothing to connect a keyboard or a wifi dongle if you dont have a zero w... you gonna need additional usb ports (you will need wifi and a keyboard at some point)

if you wire your pcb up to the gpio, this leaves the port on the pi free to be used


if your using pi 3 then ignore the above info (it has more than enough usb ports on it)

ICMF
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Re: Is the USB hub necessary?

Post by ICMF » Sun May 21, 2017 12:24 am

Depends what you want to do and how you want to do it.

If you want to use a USB sound card, that needs a USB port. PWM audio doesn't.
If you want to use Teensy for controls, that needs a USB port. GPIO controls don't.
If you want to use Bluetooth or WiFi and you've got a Pi 0, they'll need USB ports. If you've got a Pi0W or don't care about them, it will save a couple of USB ports.
If you want to be able to plug in extra controllers, you'll need USB ports. If you just want a one-player handheld, you won't

Wermy's GBZ build needed a USB hub because he added all of those features. The Minty Pi doesn't need a hub, because it only uses USB audio - and if you went with PWM instead, you wouldn't need any USB connections.

So if you're going for a really stripped-down build, no, you don't need to use any USB ports for anything. If you want more features, you might need more than the Pi0's single USB connection. If you're using a Pi3, you've probably got enough connections on-board.

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