I see in the Jetson nano carrier board schematics that only USB1 is connected to the physical USB ports on the board through a usb hub controller.
I would like to be able to have a second dedicated USB line, separate from USB1. I see that USB0 is connected to the micro usb connector and I am wondering if it is possible to use this line as a regular USB.
Connect a USB hub to the micro usb port and have it work the same as the ports connected to USB1
Design a new carrier board with USB hub controller connected to USB0
In essence I’m wondering if I can get USB0 to act the same as USB1, provided the connected hardware is the same. Or, is there some software/hardware limitation for that output that would prevent this.
The micro-USB port is actually a micro-OTG port (“on the go”). This means it accepts either a micro type-B plug (which puts the port into device mode), or a micro type-A plug (which causes the port to go into host mode). The only cables which might be supplied for this port by NVIDIA are the type-B plug, and this is why it is a device on that port. Typically this is what the port is used for since it is used in flashing, or on some models, as a serial console.
“Charger” cables are type-B, and usually quite low quality. This would not work for host mode.
You can get micro-A plugs, and if the other end plugs into a device (e.g., a keyboard or mouse or HUB), then it acts like you would expect as a host. You could connect any USB2 capable external device.
EDIT: I forgot that this is not true on all models.
I found this post that indicates that the Jetson Nano cannot use that port in host mode, which would mean that what I want to do would not work even with the right connector.
This post is from 2019, is this still the case or has something changed?
Yes, I’d forgotten about that. Other Jetsons (non-Nano) can use that port in host mode, so my mistake. So I guess you are limited to using a USB HUB, which won’t add more bandwidth; or, alternatively, use a custom carrier board manufactured by a third party.
