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Allwinner F1E200 electronic postcard with USB Device ID 1f3a:1000

USB Device ID 1f3a:1000 Allwinner F1E200 electronic postcard

I received a promotional folder that plays a video with sound when opening the folder. This contains a rechargeable LiPo battery, a TFT display, a speaker, a power switch, a push button, 256 MB flash memory, RAM, and a CPU.

All of this for watching one 1-minute video.

What a waste! Certainly not environmentally friedndly. Until repurposed creatively!

On the back it says that the product can be sent back to the manufacturer for free recycling. Still I was wondering if I could do more with it.

Teardown

Opening the delicate paperhousing is not recommended. I still went ahead and discovered:

  • E200 chip, an Allwinner F1E200 system-on-chip with an ARM926-EJS CPU running at 470 MHz (Datasheet)
  • Hynix RAM
  • Samsung Flash
  • 8 Ohm speaker
  • LiPo battery
  • Mini-USB connector

Playing own videos

My device has two buttons, one that is depressed when opening the folder and a second one that is hidden inside the carton folder below the middle of the screen.

Connect to USB, wait until the charging battery icon is shown. Then press the button 13 times (not the power on switch but the one connected to TMC2 on the PCB). You will see "usb device is connecting now" and the device will be mounted.

  • The video that is put into VIDEO/00.avi is played whenever the device is opened and the power on switch is depressed.
  • If you put an additional video into VIDEO/01.avi, then it is played when the button inside the carton folder is pressed. If the button is pressed again, then the video is paused.
  • You can attach more buttons and play additional videos like VIDEO/02.avi by attaching additional buttons to the PCB solder points TMC3 ... TMC 11 (I didn't verify all of them yet).

Note, the video doesn't really have to be in avi format, a YouTube Medium MP4 in 360p played just fine when renamed as above.

Questions

  • Which OS is this running? possibly MELIS: Allwinner's self-developed OS for media players
  • Can the boot logo be changed?
  • Can a new OS image be loaded?
  • Is there a serial port? (Probably yes!)

Other devices using this chip

Links

@myself248
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It also runs this digital picture frame: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KV706KA/

@csBlueChip
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Mine auto-mounts as a memory device in windows ...It has 6 folders video1/ thru video6/ ... each of which contains a single *.MP4 file ...They are 1280x738 H264 w/ 48K AAC audio track...it's a touch screen ...The board inside has TEN connector-pairs (buttons?) - there are ZERO buttons ...and a bank of 4 pads (UART?) ...The video playback is controlled via a touch-screen menu (which is not (obviously) on the "flash drive")

Have a datasheet: https://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/268937/F1E200_Datsheet_V1.pdf

@netmms
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netmms commented Oct 21, 2020

Hello, have you been able to do anything with this device? I have two similar devices and would like to make something out of them either run Linux on them, or at least repurpose the LCD screen to work with as a standalone screen

However, I could not find on the net anything that refers to the LCD screen and therefore not sure what driver module to utilize with it. At any rate if you are still interested in this topic, and you want me to send you some pics kindly let me know.

@passerby1
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Hi...

Can the boot logo be changed?
Can a new OS image be loaded?

I wonder if the answers to these questions have been found?

@TimTarmon
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Hi there!

I got one of these Cards today and am eager to play around with this..
Unfortunately I am not able to get the USB working

The TMC2 does not have anything soldered to it (but has solder on it) so I bridged it with a spoon 13 times but no success..
Might there be any other combination or method to get the USB Access to the video files working?

Or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

@VonSchmutzighaus
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I have a video brochure thingy myself with (almost) these specifications. To get the device to work as a usb storage device I had to press all 3 buttons 5 times. First 5 times the "play" button, then 5 times the "+" button and 5 times the "-" button (which in my case goes from "play" on top to "-" on the bottom.

Still really want to change the boot logo.

@FerdiGh
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FerdiGh commented Dec 17, 2022

Hi, any ideas on how to change the bootscreen? I am having the same issue. Easy to change / add photos and videos, but unable to change the bootscreen. Maybe we need to upload a new firmware, but I can't find any information on the web on this.

@FerdiGh
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FerdiGh commented Dec 20, 2022

Hi there, potential solution for the boot logo. Add a "logo.bmp" to the root of the USB device. It will be used by the device to replace the boot image. Needs to be the right resolution and colour options, mine would be 1024x600x32 RGBA

@VonSchmutzighaus
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Hi FerdiGh,

adding a "logo.bmp" with the correct parameters did the trick. Awesome, thanks!

@Archis19
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Hi everyone,
So I've also started working on this same project because I felt like it was a waste of hardware and features, I also got it from the government, ironically.

1000057906

1000057908

Anyway, I've been trying to connect it to my laptop but it's only getting charged, as if it was never meant to be connected any input devices, and also i couldn't find the TMC2 pin as pointed out before.

1000057907

1000057909

Also it has only four buttons, volume up/down and play next/previous video.

1000057911

Would be alot of help to me and my tormenting curiosity.
I've attached the pictures of the device for your reference.

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