Ipod Dock Connector Pin Out Diagram

I've noticed that the dock plug and/or the iPod doesn't have the best isolation in the world. I get a ground loop if I have power charging to the dock at the same time as playing from it. Annoying. A simple ground isolator fixes it, of course, but it's something to keep in mind when installing into your car, as a ground loop is a lot easier to achieve there.

In any case, I think that the dock is just a passthrough on all the pins from the rear to the dock itself, and then simply breaks out the line output pins to the stereo jack connector. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. So finding which pins are line output on the dock connection should be as easy as opening the dock.

I've got a dock on order that I'm going to disassemble and mount into my car. I'll take pictures of it in pieces for you when I get it (couple more days now). That should have enough info for you to be able to work out which pins on the plug are the line output pins.

Huh. Maybe it has to do with the "amp" in the Belkin unit. That could isolate the ground I guess. Well, we'll see, I've got that on order too.

My current plan is to attach the dock to the nice big space that is under my radio already, wire the Belkin unit underneath that, hook the power to the underside of the cigarette lighter (using an old partially broken cigarette lighter splitter that I'm going to mangle), wire in an aux line input inline with my CD Changer (eventually, still looking for a good deal on that), and bob's your uncle.

Eventually I may get bored and decode the class 2 serial bus in the car and tear apart an iPod remote in order to make my steering wheel controls work. We'll see. :D

Has anyone been lucky enough to find a source for blank plugs tht fit the bottom of the 3G iPods? I can get ahold of theschematics, I just need the plugs.

they haven't released them to the apple techs, so no info yet. I ended up using the belkin auto adapter.

Scott

i disaasemled the dock (its quite easy) and noticed a little SMD resistor that connects contacts 1,11 with 21.
Thars probably where the sound the ipod makes when plugged into the dock comes from.

For my in-car install I dissected the 4/6 pin firewire adaptor that came with the ipod and wired the 6 pin socket from that into my car effectively equipping my car with a power only firewire socket. I then used a 2nd dock and firewire cable to power the ipod and use the line out from the dock to send the audio signal to my stereo.

As yet I've not been able to resolve the grounding issues but seeing as I've not got a line-in on my stereo and have been using the FM modulator that came with my CD changer to get the signal into the stereo I'm hoping that replacing this arrangment with an iTrip will solve the problem (whilst also allowing me to remove the iPod from the dock when selecting tracks with no loss of music)

The dock itself is blu-tacked to a level surface on the interior which again isn't ideal but as I'm not planning on keeping this car for much longer I didn't go to the trouble of hiding the dock properly.

Originally posted by sathomasga
The docking connector is proprietary to Apple and Apple is only releasing the information under non-disclosure agreements. At the moment, Apple is only executing NDAs with companies that have existing, commercially-available products. (At least that's what they told me in an email.)

The person they conferenced told me some similar crap. I asked if he could tell me which manufacturer was sub-contracted to make the connectors, he told me that info was also proprietary.

buy an extra dock cable, and attach a 1/8" headphone jack onto the wires that connect pins 3 and 4 from, and ground on the #1 wire, left to right...This is only an interim solution, buit this wuold allow people with large cases you use the line out without taking off the case. this should work, but i havent tested it...tell me if there's anything wrong with this solution.

even if the cable only has the 6 pins for firewire you could just *carefully* solder two wires onto pins 3 and 4 in the connector, attach a headphone jack to the other end, and use the firewire ground or attach another wire to the line out ground pin.

i haven't tried anything that i have suggested, i'm only speculating about what the cable and connector look like. Being that i am only 15 i don't really have enough cash on hand to replace my cable and/or dock if i #### them up trying to add another line out jack. I think that the connector should be easy to get apart because it is probably only glued. You would probably need some resistors in between the headphone jack and the connector, and if you look at the belkin auto adapter, that is what i believe the little notch is (i'm not sure though).. Other than that my idea should work. anybody feel like testing it?