Bypassing the Belkin auto kits built in amp?

Thanks for the reply!

I'm wondering if it's possible to rewire the adaptor, eliminate the case, and encase the circuit board in a new, smaller, compact, less obtrusive casing. This casing would then be mountable in the glovebox, but would eliminate the need for a new cig. outlet, and also eliminate some of the clutter.

Ideally the case would still have the guts of the belkin (minus the led, and with the L, R, and Ground wired to a new headphone jack-bypassing the amp) and then have power lines that could splice into existing accessory power.

Here's the question though, do you need to somehow incorporate the Belkin's fuse?

If the adaptor was wired into switched power, (assuming that there's an accessory line close enough) and that power goes through the fuse box, do you really need a seperate fuse?

m.

There's a really great electronics store near me... You Do It! electronics and I'm pretty sure that they're going to have a pretty decent small box that I could house the board in.

My main thing is this, I don't like the Belkin because it's bulky and awkward in the glovebox. I'd like to construct a new box to increase the 'stealth factor'. Geeky I know, but as we're on a website discussing an adapter for a portable fire wire music player...well I guess that's understandable. Anyway, I'd like to do it none the less.

It'd just be nice to get the size down a bit.

As far as the hardwiring to the car goes, could i just use the cigarette lighter? Since I have the center console out, maybe I could just splice into that?

If the power for the lighter goes to a fuse, why does belkin include another fuse? Safety?

If the box could go like this...

Power (wired to switched) <--[Board]--> Sound (Line level- non amp'd to RCA input)
^
Dock Cable
^
iPod

is it possible to wire in the fuse and still splice into accessory power? Like how would one do that? I'm thinking that the power going to the glovebox light would be perfect, and if not that, then the power going to the cig lighter would be cool too...I just hoped for switched power...

m.

p.s. Thanks for helping me with this!

I'm not concerned about the power draw, I just want to keep the auto pause feature.

Supposedly, if connected to switched power the unit will auto pause when the car cuts off. It's a great feature, and one I like to try to keep.

m.

My Belkin pauses my ipod. I like the unit, though in the 2 months I've had it and my ipod, about 3 times I've had issues where the sounds starts cutting in and out. I've determined it's either the Belkin or the audio output on the dock connector. I know it's not a power issue, because it'd be pausing my ipod if it were, and the light on the Belkin isn't going on and off. It's not the iPod playback itself because if I unplug the output from the Belkin and plug into the iPod, it will sound ok. Thinking it's most likely the Belkin, since the issue seems to go away the next time I start up the car.

A few things...

1. Got my PIE cable back from them, after sending it in to have 2 resistors replaced. This was done to accomodate the line out signal from the dock. It will distort unless these resistors are replaced.

2. Opened my belkin, desoldered the power wires, the left right and ground audio, and soldered into a new case with a stereo mini jack on it.

3. (Next to do) Will figure out some kind of standard power jack to put in the casing that I'm using, and then run cables to my switched power terminal under the dash, and also to a ground. These will cap off into a standard power plug. This will allow me to plug and unplug the unit, without having to remove the 'hard wiring'.

I'll keep updates coming as i go along...
m.

But it has two wires coming from the dock connector (messy), the two leads are short (harder to hide and messy) and the power cable is a firewire connector. The Belkin provides all the same benefits in one cable and with a little reverse engineering it's the superior product.

more cables = messier, regardless of installation.

The amp is easily bypassed on the belkin with about $3 in parts and makes for a more attractive soloution.

I had the same problem the other day while using mine for the first time. I bought the adapter off of eBay so that could have been the problem right there, but it seemed like it was brand new.

Anyway, everytime i would plug into the line out jack it would blow the 2 amp fuse inside the adapter. I took it apart and realized that the ground wire had become disconneted inside the housing somehow. To fix it I simply soldered it back in place and.. problem solved!

Make sure you got the correct ground wires...there are two, one for audio and one for power...make sure you didn't cross them up some how. Thats the only thing I can think of...I didn't really mess with the power circuit on mine, I just added an extra cigarette lighter outlet inside my glove box, I figured that would be more useful in the long run anyhow.

Found the short, I investigated it earlier today, and thought that it might be my power cord. Sure enough when I unscrewed the power cord plug, my ends were waaaay to close and so I clipped them.

I then found a <hammer>'Proper'</hammer> ground where other ground wires were terminating.

Hooked up and tested, no power, then accessory, then start, then with iPod hooked in...VIOLA!

The iPod showed charge, as well as played perfect audio (with no interference noise). Also I would like to note for the record, that when I turn of my car THE IPOD PAUSES.

For all of you out there using your cigarette lighter to power the iPod...if you don't get a pause when you turn off the car, it's because your cig. lighter is constant power, it's powered even when the car is off. The iPod never get's the signal to turn off, because the car never cut's the power to the plug.

I love the internet. I didn't know how to solder, I didn't know where to get the power for the adapter, I didn't know what the wires on the adapter did, I didn't know how to wire fuses in-line, and I learned it all...ALL online.

Thanks iPod Lounge!
m.

Mine pauses. I don't really know why yours doesn't

Try this.
1. Start with iPod off.
2. Plug iPod into adapter.
3. Turn on car.
4. Turn off car.
5. See if iPod pauses.

Let me know what happens for you.

Excellent, glad it worked for you...

I'm not sure what the difference is. But I wanted Line out, so it was worth it to me.

You don't have to dig around under your dash to do that.

The diference is huge. You have the pure audio signal from the ipod versus the processed/colored signal after it passes through all of the belkin's BS circuitry.

The main thing is that eliminates trying to find the 'perfect balance' between the belkin's volume and your car's volume. If the belkin's too high, you get extreme distortion when you turn your car's volume up and vice versa. When you take the belkin's amp and volume wheel out of the equation, you can be certian that you're getting a pure, untouched signal from the ipod and let your car's head unit do all the volume adjusting.

I just rewired my Belkin car adapter to bypass the internal amp. Definitely cleans up the sound back to what I was used to hearing without the Belkin's amp. Rather than wiring in a new phono jack, I use the existing one inside the Belkin adapter. This required desoldering the jack and cutting all of its solder pads free of existing connections on the PCB. Then I soldered the jack back in place. Since it was now free of all othe connections, I could tack on the yellow and green signal lines and black ground wire. Doing it this way, the Belkin looks unchanged, but its jack is now pure line out. No more amp to distort the sound.

BTW, I found that I had to isolate the ground of the phono jack so only the small black wire is connected to it. If any of the other grounds were left connected, I could hear electronic noise of the iPod. Thinks like disk spin-up's etc were audible. Once the phono jack's ground was truely connected to only the small black wire, all that noise went away.

I just attempted the Belkin amp install...and I would say that the noise level is now an order of magnitude worse.

How is this possible? I checked and rechecked my wiring and it's exactly the same as the pics indicate, yet the noise has become unbearable. Is there something extremely stupid that I'm missing here?

Where can I buy an external line out jack like the one one cruze.org?
I have fry's and radioshack near me...