Inside the car dock.

[ACalcutt]

I took apart the car dock yesterday to see if there was an easy way to make it pass data and keep the audio.

I didn't get very far on this yet (not sure I will) , but here are some pictures of the internals for anyone that may be interested.


EDIT: Does anyone know if this board is basically a mini usb soundcard?

[imnotmikal]

What purpose would passing data serve, in a car dock?

[ACalcutt]

What purpose would passing data serve, in a car dock?

The short answer is I would like to use pdanet usb tether instead of bluetooth tether to my laptop.

The longer answer is I have a wireless mapping project (see vistumbler in my signature) that works with google earth. I like having a connection to the internet so google earth can pull in the imagery of my surroundings. Vistumbler maps access points live, somewhat like wardrive for android but with more information.


I assume audio is being passed over the usb data wires, since mirco usb doesn't have its own connections for audio

[b00mb00mchuck]

What purpose would passing data serve, in a car dock?

My pioneer head unit has a usb port... it will charge the phone as well as read the memory as a flash drive and i'm able to play all the songs on my D1 using the head unit's player.... song info, artist, folder, etc are displayed on the dash display and the use of the remote control is what I don't want to lose... i'm driving, i'm comfortable, and now I have to lift my arm and lean forward to skip a track?.... that sucks .... I woulda just got one of those stupid generic clamp holders if I had known about this up front....

[wseyller]

What purpose would passing data serve, in a car dock?

My pioneer head unit has a usb port... it will charge the phone as well as read the memory as a flash drive and i'm able to play all the songs on my D1 using the head unit's player.... song info, artist, folder, etc are displayed on the dash display and the use of the remote control is what I don't want to lose... i'm driving, i'm comfortable, and now I have to lift my arm and lean forward to skip a track?.... that sucks .... I woulda just got one of those stupid generic clamp holders if I had known about this up front....

Hmm. I have a new Kenwood bluetooth car cd player with front USB port. Wonder if it will work with my D1. I may try it out later.

Edit: It does works. Soon as I plug it in the cd player starts reading but I have to be quick to turn on usb storage on the phone before the cd player quits searching. It starts playing ringtone and notification sounds i have on the sd card first. I can skip to other songs and folders to get to my actual music.

[Joefishnc]

How does the D3 know that it is in the Car Dock? Is there a magnet like on the Home Dock? if so where? or is it USB Controlled?

[phunk]

How does the D3 know that it is in the Car Dock? Is there a magnet like on the Home Dock? if so where? or is it USB Controlled?

It's not a magnet, it detects the usb connection.

[ACalcutt]

Well, I messed with making the car dock pass data again today. Here are the results





First I removed the circuit board from inside the car-dock and spliced it to a USB Type A connector to the dock usb connection (the connection that connects to the phone).


If all I wanted to do was pass data this would be enough, this worked to connect to my laptop, but most of the time I want to use the audio pass through adapter. My idea was to take the circuit inside the cardock and make an adapter out of it (which i could hide inside the dash or something).


This somewhat works. When power is applied the phone goes car-dock mode. It does not pass audio however. I found for audio the brown wire was also needed (I think this is connected to pin 4 which is usually not connected in micro usb). The problem is because I used USB-A connectors (so it could easily be connected to the laptop) it doesn't have the extra wire i needed (doh)

So...back to the drawing board I guess...so close


I couldn't find my meter, but i think this is the pinout of the dock connection

+5	Red
Data−	White
Data+	Green
	Brown	- Seems to be needed for audio
GND	Black

I think the yellow wire is just the outside sheilding/ground