Nanohub - tiny USB 2.0 and 3.0 hubs!

By popular (2 people :-P) request, I've made a 7-port tiny USB hub. This one uses a slightly different approach for the eyelet pattern than the previous ones. Take a look at it:

Instead of in-line eyelets, I have staggered the holes to create a 1.27mm pattern. This in turn means you can use regular old 1.27mm ribbon cable or even connectors to interface the hub. Should make it just a little bit easier to solder the slightly ridiculous amount of ports on this hub. 

The hub is 19.5x17.5mm and 1.6mm thick - roughly equivalent to the 2-port USB 3.1 hub.

I finally received the hub chip order, and assembled a couple of USB 3.1 NanoHubs. I really like how tiny it has become!

I decided to start offering both a connectorized and unconnectorized version, dropping the price of the connector-less version. It's always nice when things get cheaper, right?

Oh, and I got a solder paste mask with this one now. I never really sold enough USB 3.0 rev0 hubs to buy one, but I have one pending order that by itself justifies the expense. That makes assembly a lot faster, so part of the price drop has to do with improved efficiency as well :)

Don't you just love micro-paneling?

Unfortunately I have to wait until the new USB hub chips are in, as it turns out MicrochipDIRECT is not particularly direct. They take their time.

Hot off the heels of the last update, I just got my revision 1 Microhubs in. I'm pretty happy how these turned out. I also panelized these with power traces going out to a main board, so I can assemble and bench test 6 hubs at a time. 

Designing the new and improved revision 1 of the USB 3 nanohub now. I'm upgrading from TUSB8020 to USB5742, which means:

• power consumption is lowered by 10-20%
• support for the USB 3.1 protocol now (still 5GBps though)
• board size reduced from 20x20 to 20x15mm

The USB 3.0 hub has been out of stock for a while, and it will stay out of stock until these boards are in - probably around 15 Sept. But it's going to be worth the wait!

By popular request - sorry that it took so long! - I finally added my NanoHub project to Hackaday. I've been blogging about and selling these little hubs for almost half a year now, but something was missing - you!

See, I don't really derive much pleasure from selling electronics. I made this open source and keep supporting the project because I viscerally enjoy supporting hacking projects. Unfortunately, I really don't get much feedback via my store - really, all the messages I get are either "When will my nanohub get delivered?" or "when are the nanohubs back in stock?". Not saying that buyers aren't totally in their right to ask me that, but I would like some more... you know, pictures of projects incorporating the nanohub, feedback on stuff that could be more convenient, etc. I want my projects to be alive!

So thanks to all the people who already liked this project even though it's less than 12 hours old and happy hacking!