Have you at one point ever thought that iPod cables at the Apple stores were extremely EXTREMELY expensive? Or that you can’t bring yourself to take the leap of faith to buy those amazingly cheap cables you saw at a Made-In-China shop? OR, just never liked how the iPod cables looked?
Here’s a solution – D.I.Y. or Do it YOURSELF/MYSELF/OWNSELF
Dun Don’t chiu you dun like HATE bad england English?
Well, this is just my version so I do not need to bring too many cables around to school every day. It’s the love story of the dock and the port.
The extra wires popping out are actually my audio wires.
What you need :
1. iPod Dock – $4.80
This can be bought from KOBA Electronics at People’s Park Centre, Chinatown.
2. Mini USB Port – $1.50
This can be bought from Sim Lim Tower, Bugis. You can easily find it in the stores with a million tiny components… Erm… Wait you have to go through the million components to find it but don’t worry, they’re labeled.
3. Thin Wires Of Almost Any Kind - $1 per meter?
Of course insulated unless you want a major shorting in your dock and when I say thin, I mean THIN. Here’s why.
HOLY CRAP! Look at those PUNY pins! For a comparison grab your nearest gadget with a mini USB!
Lets get started!
First open up your dock to another HOLY CRAP! Look at the millions of pins at the back of the dock! Well before you panic, you only need FOUR out of the THIRTY pins. Mainly, pin 16, 23, 25 and 27.
Notice the two red circles and the pin number from one to thirty.
Pins one to thirty are labeled above, you do the math… Counting’s not exactly math… Right? Once you are positive of the correct pins, use a pair of pliers and slowly remove the extra pins. Give ’em a yank to get the little buggers out. Once you are done, use the pliers to slowly bend the pins away from each other to reduce the chances of shorting two pins.
Something like this would do well. Notice that the ones in this picture are not the correct pins. These three pins are for making an audio line out for iPods.
Now… Put that aside and take a look at your mini USB. Flip it such that the pins are on top and facing you like this.
The pins are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 from the left to the right. We will not be using pin 2.
Here’s which is connected to which.
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
1 5 4 3
Basically, pin 16 connected to 1 is the ground.
Pin 23 connected to 5 is the power, 5 volts.
Pin 25 connected to 4 is the negative USB data.
Pin 27 connected to 3 is the positive USB data.
Once you are done killing braincells and possibly cooking your hands with a soldering iron, it’s time to secure the entire thing onto the dock case. I would use hot glue to glue the entire thing down onto the case and the rest is quite intuitive. Finally, close the case with a nice satisfying SNAP!
Oh and err… Don’t forget to TEST it!
