As you may remember, several weeks ago I wrote about my soon-to-be wardriving setup that centered around my new TW700 Winbook. I had a cheap USB hub, a TP-Link dual-band Wi-Fi stick, and an EM506 GPS receiver.

I finally took some time on Saturday to get rid of the fat, i.e., all the individual plastic housings, the USB connectors themselves (physically large and limited my layout options), and am about to repackage the whole thing into a single weathertight enclosure that can either be attached via magnets to the top of the rental cars or carried in a backpack/fannypack as I walk around an area.

Here’s the setup without all the excess plastic. The GlobalSat EM-406A (SiRF Star III) modular GPS is at the left, with its built-in antenna the white/beige square; the TP-Link dual-band Wi-Fi dongle has been reduced to just the board, and as well I removed the USB connector to reduce the length; the USB hub has had the two dual-port USB assemblies removed to reduce height; and all the former USB connections have been reduced to bits of ribbon cable. The TP-Link dual-band antenna is quite good and so I’ll be keeping that. The 3′ USB hub cable still needs to be replaced with a 6′ version, and I think I’ll remove the RP-SMA connector from the side of the TP-Link and directly connect the coax to the board.

The most difficult thing so far has been removing the excess USB paraphernalia and cleaning up the board. To that end, yesterday I bought a new tip for the soldering station, and more 63/37 solder. I use a solder sucker to remove the existing solder, but have found it’s quite difficult with the RoHS solder used nowadays. The 63/37 solder seems to dilute the RoHS solder and make it easier to remove with the solder sucker.

Today I’ll finish this up and put it in an enclosure.