Re: BETTER IPod Breakout Dock
Ovidio Neufville
All I was able to find where those three products in the image. One is only able to charge, the other is a little too thick for my taste (middle one), the lower one would require a lot of effort, once the dock connector is bent at a 90 degree angle from the breakout board.
Hello. I am trying to extract the metadata aka the song title/artist/genre from the ipod on to the arduino and to the lcd. I have ordered and constructed pod breakout mini and contructed a cable, but am unsure of how to proceed from here. Help!
The Control4 Dock for iPod is the most effective and affordable way to connect your iPods to your Control4 system. The Control4 Dock for iPod offers better navigation and control than existing docks, allowing you to effectively distribute music and video throughout your home. Access a single iPod or connect all of your family's iPods at the same time simply by adding more docks.
To bring together the symbol and the package layouts, we created a new device called the ipod-dock-connector. Within the package definition we associate the pins on the physical package with the pins in the schematic version. Now all the really tedious stuff is finished and we can start laying out the actual connections.
If you want to start playing around with your own dock designs, you can download the library we created for EAGLE here. Just place it in the "lbr" directory under the main EAGLE program directory. We'll continue the project in next week's in Part II. We'll be designing the dock and laying out the board using EAGLE. From there we'll make our own PC board and complete the super dock faster than you can say "iPod on fire."
Wow, this thing is unwieldy. It's a much-needed product, but the connector should be connected to the breakout board with a ribbon cable.
This rigid design is going to put a ton of stress on the junction with the dock connector, demanding that you put a large, sturdy enclosure around the whole thing.
We have a smaller version of the PodBreakout that fits inside the connector housing. It is called the PodBreakout Mini, SparkFun does not carry these, however you can find them here -ipod-iphone-ipad-podbreakout-mini.aspx
One of our forum members, ridax, has purchased a bulk amount of dock connectors to resell to hobbyists. If you are interested, you can order several different styles of dock connectors, breakout boards, extenders and extension cables online here from Ridax ( ). He distributes world-wide. (There is also a forum for discussing the dock connector ( =connector).) Spark Fun Electronics also sells male dock connectors here ( _info.php?products_id=633). In europe, www.qables.com also sells dock connectors (see under DIY Connectors & Parts).
If you don't need the built-in iPod dock, consider instead the Audiovox D8000XP--it's got a swivel screen and a more compact design and retails for as little as $130. On the iPod front, however, the aforementioned Philips DCP850 Docking Entertainment System definitely deserves consideration versus this Audiovox model. It offers a slightly larger screen that can swivel and fold, better file compatibility (including DivX), and a more attractive overall design--without a protruding battery. Considering that it's available for roughly the same price as the Audiovox, it makes the D8000IP a tough sell indeed.
By embedding a PIC microcontroller into an NES controller, it can be converted into a replacement for Apple's iPod remote.
(Only 3rd and 4th Generation iPods have this, it is a the small oval port next to the headphone jack).
Update (8/26/2011):
It's been quite some time since iPods have used this iPod remote connector, but the dock connector (the one used on all iPods except the shuffle, iPad, and iPhone) has the same Rx/Tx pins, as well as a 3.3V out. A simple breakout board can replace the hacked connector at the end, and you can get this to work with any recent Apple products. You can buy breakout boards at: -v1.aspx
(The mini one is pretty nice, and they also have pinout information).
It does use the same protocol, a long as you connect to the right pins. If you can solder to the tiny pins in the dock connector (they sell some over at SparkFun) it's definitely possible. It would certainly be a better connection than my kludged together RAM-chunk connector.
The PICAXE iPod connect kit enables a remote control kit to be developed for any iPod wth bottom docking port. The kit includes a PICAXE-14M2 chip, AXE117 PICAXE-14 project board and special iPod docking port breakout connector.
A short while later, we ended up discovering a second source for our PCB, which cost about the same as the original source but came with the dock connector pre-soldered, which was very useful as it was probably going to be a better soldering job than we could hope to accomplish by ourselves. Additionally, unlike the other source, it would ship within the United States. Using First Class Mail, we received our component in about 2 days (shipped on Thursday from CO, received on Saturday).
Everyone warns you about it, but somehow we got bit by it anyway. We're referring to, of course, having extra components for important things that you need. In our case, the critical piece was the PCB breakout board for the dock connector. It turns out that a pin inside the connector was no longer well connected with the pin connected to the board. This meant that our wire connection was good all the way from breadboard, to PCB, to the pin leading inside the dock connector, but the pin inside the dock connector was flaky. We had anticipated this and ordered another connector as a spare, but this took additional time and put time pressure on our schedule that we would've liked to do without.
There is a ribbon connector on the dock board, and with a bit of patience, I was able to reverse-engineer the schematic on the dock board. This meant, that armed with the pin-out of the 30-pin connector, I could work out what the signals on the ribbon cable were, and, the schematic of the volume buttons. With the ribbon connector salvaged from the dock board, I was able to bodge together a breakout board for the trusty breadboard!
One of the hottest topics in the projector world these days is LED projection. In short, LED projectors use a group of light emitting diodes, or LEDs, in place of the traditional high-pressure lamp assembly. LEDs last much longer than traditional lamps, though as of now they are not typically bright enough to constitute a true replacement for high-pressure lamp technology.The BenQ Joybee GP1 is an LED-based pocket projector designed for entertainment use. At $500, it represents an economical option for several nontraditional uses, such as taking it on vacation, hooking it up to a child's video game system, or even setting up a micro-theater in the car. With several innovative features such as iPod connectivity, the Joybee GP1 is an interesting projector with a low price.AdvantagesPicture Quality.The Joybee GP1 produces a picture that is smooth, sharp, and easy to watch. Color temperature out of the box is too high, so you will want to make some adjustments if you plan to use it for movies or games, but color saturation is acceptable. Contrast is fairly low, but for casual use like children's cartoons or basic video games, it will suffice. You would not want to use it with a game requiring higher contrast, like Splinter Cell or Halo, however. Image sharpness is solid at native resolution, and still respectable at higher resolutions.Highly portable. The GP1 weighs only 1.5 pounds, and is about the size of a small stack of CDs. This makes it easy to pack up and take along wherever you go. Even with the power brick and a video cable, the GP1 does not exceed 3 pounds total weight. Nearly Silent. One common problem with many portable projectors is fan noise. Since the casework is so small, the noise of the exhaust fan is not muffled by anything, so small projectors tend to sound louder than larger models of comparable specifications. The GP1, though, is nearly silent at 28 dB. We often had trouble differentiating the noise of the projector from the noise of the ceiling fan, air conditioning system, or computer's fan. It is quieter than a myriad of other common room noises, and will not cause any distraction to your audience.Tripod mountable. Since the Joybee GP1 has a fixed zoom and no lens shift, adjusting image size and location can be difficult. The easiest way to quickly and easily adjust the image is to mount the projector on a tripod, using the standard screw-in attachment point on the unit's base. This allows you to easily adjust height and projection angle, as well as being able to easily move the projector closer to or farther from the viewing surface. While a tripod is not included, inexpensive models are excellent for this application and are available at most retails stores that sell consumer-grade cameras.iPod and USB connectivity. With such a small projector, you may want to watch a movie without attaching a DVD player or computer. The Joybee GP1 offers two options for this - iPod and USB playback. With iPod playback, the GP1 will play movie files stored on your iPod through a dock connection. Or, using a USB flash drive, you can play back certain types of movie files directly from storage media. The GP1 can only handle certain types of movie files, so you'll need to convert any media you have in order to use it, but GP1 does include a conversion utility if you do not already have one.2W speaker. The projector does include a speaker. It sounds somewhat tinny, but one cannot expect reference-quality audio from a projector this small. Suffice it to say that the speaker will do if you are not using your own external speaker system or a set of headphones. And, speaking of headphones, the projector has a 1/8" audio out port, so you can use headphones even while watching media from a USB drive.
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