Pipo M9 Pro wifi antenna modification instructions

[elmachinegun]

Just for curiosity: is Bluetooth still working? I'm asking this because the shape of this antenna is a lot different wrt the stock one, and bluetooth and wi-fi shares the same antenna!

I'm working to find the copper tape (extremely difficult to find it in Italy, also on e-bay in the rest of europe is not so simple to find it!!!)

Bluetooth works fine, I dont use it that much but just used it to connect to my Samsung S3 and transfer some files to test. All went smooth.

I understand that wifi and bluetooth both operate in the 2.4 Ghz band, so the same antenna design works well for both. In the designer's paper he even mentions that this antenna works forthe 5 Ghz band.

I ordered the copper tape directly from China (everything comes from China this days) I got two rolls for US$6

If you still can't get it. I would be happy to provide some for you. Just PM your name and full adress and I will send you enough to make 4 or 5 antennas, no problem.

Regards.

[giouncino]

First of all I want to thank everybody in this forum for your wonderful and helpful ideas and comments.

I want to share my experiences with you for this topic.

I wanted to get better signal from my wifi antenna, so I decided to do the cardboard trick, long story short, made the same mistake as giouncino, pulled too hard from the antenna...





So I went on **** and ordered an Ipad replacement, took the broken one out then installed the new one... The new antenna behave pretty much as the broken one!. Very low signal and constant disconnections. So it was time for other options.

I searched the internet for a replacement that could work with my Pipo M9 Pro. And I found this article http://fabiobaltieri.com/2012/06/02/...-wifi-antenna/

That was something to give a try, so I bought a roll of 10mm copper tape and cutted the design.



I soldered both wires to the antenna, but as Finless found out, my signal was not quite good.



So just left the red wire (+) connected and completely removed the black wire. As Finless says: "If it works..."

Here is the final result:


Here are some readouts, before and after:

These where taken 3m in front of the router.


These are from a floor above from the router.


Hope this helps somebody that has a broken antenna like me.

I am very happy with the performance of this DIY antenna. Besides it only costs pennys to build.

Good luck and continue with your research.

Sincerely.

Just for curiosity: is Bluetooth still working? I'm asking this because the shape of this antenna is a lot different wrt the stock one, and bluetooth and wi-fi shares the same antenna!

I'm working to find the copper tape (extremely difficult to find it in Italy, also on e-bay in the rest of europe is not so simple to find it!!!)

[M9ProPipo]

The GPS is fine, but won't find a fix quickly until you initialize it

Just for info. The gps.conf that you mentioned. I have tried it. No go for me. Doesn't even work outdoors. Doubt it's the fault of the conf file though. I strongly believe it's pertaining to my GPS(or lack of it). You can try it first though. But since you got the expertise and equipment to do a solder. I would suggest you go ahead and do it for gps. If you do go ahead with the hardware mod. Please do share it too! Do note that this is my personal experience. Others have shown success with the simple file added. I hope you have better success than me.

Hi,

to those having a hard time getting the GPS to work I point you to this post:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?7826-Pipo-M9-Pro-RileyROM-2-0&p=109700&viewfull=1#post109700

key points:
* hold it in portait mode with the camera on the right.
* in the settings for ntpsync tell it a local ntp server and run it before you go out
* gps.conf and "fast" gps lock solutions just do a ntp sync at gps launch, and thus require a 3G network connection or outdoor wifi to work (and if you have outdoor wifi you probably don't need gps to tell you where you are!). IMHO all those mods are more risk and much more trouble than they are worth; just use ntpsync.
* after you get a fix let gpstest run for >30 minutes without interuption.
* OSMAnd~ from F-droid.org for a great nav app.

I've never gotten much above 40% SNR, but regularly get 11-12 sats in view many in the high 30s. Considering it's a cheap dipole wire sandwiched between a multilayer PCB and a sheet of aluminum, I wouldn't really expect it to be any more. Time to lock takes longer than I'd like compared to dedicated gps units, but usually has it in less than a minute or two which is fine for driving. Hopefully future android releases don't put so much stock in the time already being accurate to within milliseconds.

[elmachinegun]

No need to thank.

It is a pleasure to help.

Don't forget to share how was your intent.

[giouncino]

I'm also not happy of the performance of iPad antenna replacement...
So I think I will build my own antenna too!

Thank you for sharing your results.

[elmachinegun]

First of all I want to thank everybody in this forum for your wonderful and helpful ideas and comments.

I want to share my experiences with you for this topic.

I wanted to get better signal from my wifi antenna, so I decided to do the cardboard trick, long story short, made the same mistake as giouncino, pulled too hard from the antenna...

for wi-fi I did not test because i destroyed the stock antenna during solderings...

For this reason I decided to buy hopefully better antennas and I ordered a Wifi/bluethooth antenna (the same antenna is shared between wi-fi and bluethooth) on e-bay coming from an iPad mini (2,43€) and a 3G antenna coming from a HP laptop (8,98€).
As soon as the new antennas will arrive I'll check if they are really better than PIPO stock ones.

So I went on **** and ordered an Ipad replacement, took the broken one out then installed the new one... The new antenna behave pretty much as the broken one!. Very low signal and constant disconnections. So it was time for other options.

I searched the internet for a replacement that could work with my Pipo M9 Pro. And I found this article http://fabiobaltieri.com/2012/06/02/...-wifi-antenna/

That was something to give a try, so I bought a roll of 10mm copper tape and cutted the design.



I soldered both wires to the antenna, but as Finless found out, my signal was not quite good.

FYI for my tablet all I did was de-solder the ground/shield side of the antenna and this totally fixed it.

We had this very same issue on the MK808 TV stick and de-soldering ground fixed those too.

Now the best way is like the above procedure but I can tell you just desoldering ground also works and did for hundreds of MK808's as well as my M9 Pro

Bob

So just left the red wire (+) connected and completely removed the black wire. As Finless says: "If it works..."

Here is the final result:


Here are some readouts, before and after:

These where taken 3m in front of the router.


These are from a floor above from the router.


Hope this helps somebody that has a broken antenna like me.

I am very happy with the performance of this DIY antenna. Besides it only costs pennys to build.

Good luck and continue with your research.

Sincerely.

[giouncino]

In this case it is better to write a PM directly to him...

[catalin1970]

english,
please

Sorry. This is only a request for help as that guy is Romanian.

[giouncino]

Am vazut ca esti roman si de aceea am o rugaminte la tine. Am aceeasi problema cu wi fi ( instabilitatea conexiunii) la o tableta pipo m9 pro 3g si nu ma pricep la chestii de astea precum deschisul tabletei, inlocuit fire sau lipituri. Daca manpoti ajuta cu repararea ei te rog sa imi dai un raspuns. Eu sint din Bucuresti.
Multumesc

english,
please

[catalin1970]

salut

Hey guys,

I had the same problem with the WIFI as everyone else. Couldn't stay connected for more than 15 minutes, sometimes it would drop after 30 seconds or 2 minutes. After reading all the posts here and other forums about replacing the wires, yesterday I thought I'd give it a shot.

Before replacing the wires, I wanted to try something I read elsewhere (where they said there's no reason to replace the wires).

I unglued (not unsoldered!) the wifi adapter from the case, cut a piece of thicker paper to fit between the case and the wifi adapter and placed it between the two. Then I put the adapter back in the original position (on top of the paper), put 3 stripes of insulating tape (image below) over it to shield it(?), and the original scotch tape that was over it.



I'm glad to say that yesterday, I had 6 hours with no interruption and today another 4 hours. Also, when connecting from one network to another, if I turn WIFI off while it's connected and then turn it back on, it connects instantly. As range goes, it's still good, I have 54Mb (router max speed) while in the room with the router, and about 36Mb while in other rooms with concrete walls.

Hope it helps for you guys who want to try something else before messing up with the wires.

Here is how you should open the Pipo (look for open pipo M9 01 17 part & open pipo M9 02 17 part)

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKJcthilKC1OJcrgO-YTV6Q/videos

Cheers

Am vazut ca esti roman si de aceea am o rugaminte la tine. Am aceeasi problema cu wi fi ( instabilitatea conexiunii) la o tableta pipo m9 pro 3g si nu ma pricep la chestii de astea precum deschisul tabletei, inlocuit fire sau lipituri. Daca manpoti ajuta cu repararea ei te rog sa imi dai un raspuns. Eu sint din Bucuresti.
Multumesc

[giouncino]

if someone is interested, this is what I do on my M6pro 3G:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?9879-Pipo-M6pro-Coaxial-cable-and-antennas-modification-replacement

[mrleezh]

Just a heads up guys. Do be careful when opening the tablet. I have trashed my microsd slot by accident already so do be super careful when tearing this tablet apart. Thankfully I can still use the micro SD else where. Plus this tablet has 32 GB worth. Hopefully you guys don't face such issues as I did

[Zeggi]

Which method did you use? Replacing the wire or tape insulation?

I replaced the wires with 2new and seperated positive and ground according to the picture

[vvuv]

Quite strange, I could not find any problem with the WiFi signal stability and no disconnections on my M9Pro with WiFi/HSPA (Had some problems with HSPA, Resolved after updating to 2013-12-10)
The distance from router is bigger than 10M with a lot of walls in between the WiFi signals is around 2-3 bars though the speed around 10-15mbps when I do a speedtest, No disconnection and 2-5mbps IPTV streams are playing without any bufferings for hours long without any disconnections. It only disconnect after inactivity to save battery, Though this setting could be turned off in Settings>Wi-Fi>Advaned. Also you may try to turn the "Wi-Fi Optimization" feature off. I have noticed that it lower the signal in certain circumstances.
Only can not seem to get the GPS to locate satellites quickly. My MTK6589t phone locate them within some 30 seconds while the PiPO M9 Pro can not though I have never really tried to resolve it since I do not need GPS on this tablet.
Now they have released a beta version of Android 4.4.2, Though only for the WiFi version.

[giouncino]

M6pro antennas mod

I changed the coax cable of my M6pro with a coaxial "low loss" one:
For 3G seems almost useless, for wi-fi I did not test because i destroyed the stock antenna during solderings...

For this reason I decided to buy hopefully better antennas and I ordered a Wifi/bluethooth antenna (the same antenna is shared between wi-fi and bluethooth) on e-bay coming from an iPad mini (2,43€) and a 3G antenna coming from a HP laptop (8,98€).
As soon as the new antennas will arrive I'll check if they are really better than PIPO stock ones.