Best posts made by Alex Brooke

Looks like those diodes are "transient-voltage-suppression diodes", and are used to clamp down on electrostatic discharge from frying the rest of the circuit.

As for the transistor, you could probably do without it (though I don't claim to be any sort of expert) and just have the regulator connected directly to the power bus through a switch.

I'm going to be doing something similar, but I just got a cheap CP2102 breakout board on amazon (they generally come with 3V3 output, so no need even to connect through the regulator) to save myself the hassle.

@fossette said in USB connection without a dock:

If you can trace an Omega pin to a documented CPU pin, you're in business.

Remember there's a big metal plate covering one whole side of the board (the side with the ICs )

EDIT: wow that's a big picture

I got an email with a tracking link, but it only tracked the package until it got to a Deutshe Post place in Hong Kong, so I was completely surprised when I found out I had a package delivered today.