So I got my car dock, I knew it didn't come with a line out, but figured I could add one. You all know how aewsome it would be to have a line out jack on this thing rather than the stock "speakers". Well good news, I am going to make myself a line out and will post pictures about how I am doing it.
I have the thing taken apart right now, and just need to go buy a 3.5mm audio jack.
So, my plan will be to still use the cardock for phone and stereo profiles, just using my car stereo's aux in rather than the dock's weak speakers. I'll leave the microphones on the dock intact, just not the speakers. The good news is the speakers are removable, making room for a 3.5mm audio jack. the bad news? the jack will have to be on the dock body, not base. I'm sure if you try hard enough, one of yoiu will find a place in the base for a jack, but for now, I'm going to add one to the body, on the bottom (in portrait mode).
There you have it, I'll be able to make the dock a semi-permanent fixture in my car and never have to plug in an audio cable to get my music through my car speakers.
Pictures to follow soon, I just couldn't wait to start this project, and get some reactions / moral support.
Someone else looked at doing the same thing a while back. I seem to recall they came up against several hurdles. It is not as clear cut as it seems.
On the face of it- it would seem the approach you are taking will necessitate you having your car stereo ON and AUX selected any time you need to take a phone call. Might be a bit of a pain when you are for example, listening to the car radio and your phone rings. Or if the phone rings and your stereo happens to be turned off.
I find the inbuilt speakers totally adequate for Phone Audio. This arrangement has the benefit it being standalone and means N1 Phone Audio works regardless of current car stereo state. I send the Media Audio to my car stereo via BT though, as it sure benefits from the better speakers quality and auto pauses the Media when the phone is in use.
Good luck with it and do a search for the other thread as there is some good info info in there.
PS take a look through this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6427057&postcount=39
Might save you some heart ache
I only found that thread, after i had my dock quite disassembled and did a google search for the chipset under the RF shield. :/
I don't use my car's head unit for anything but aux audio, radio is dead to me, so I shouldn't have any problems. The hurdle is the audio being fed to the speakers do NOT share a common ground. They utilize an active-balanced system. both leads are hot, common to themselves.
Now it seems as I will have to choose which channel gets full audio and just bum 'common' from the dominant channel. or i come up with some way to convert two independent balanced audio feeds to a common ground.
I have had no luck looking up the NF2301 daughter board. I was hoping to find a schematic detailing the line level outputs, but no go. I did think it was interesting that the car dock and desktop dock share the same PCB, too bad there is no detailed schematic yet...
FAILURE - giving up
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality
Alternatively, at the point you have a desktop dock.... Instead of butchering it for the board, Just install it somewhere out of site in your car and connect it to your cars Aux-in with a 3.5mm lead. Thats what I have done. Works well. Only downside is I still have to manually connect the desktop. It does not autoconnect to deskdock when N1 is placed in cardock obviously.
Too bad your set up did not work for now.
kajer said:
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality
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Maybe it's using a low bitrate A2DP bluetooth transfer. Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.
khaytsus said:
Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.
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I believe this is the likely reason why Google didn't include an audio out port on the dock. Yes, it's on the desktop dock, but that's really all the desktop dock handles, whereas the car dock has a mic as well, etc.
I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.
wonkotron said:
I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.
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detail isn't really necessary, it's pretty straightforward.
-get a knife and use it to peel off the black rectangular sticker on the front of the dock. it's right where the battery on the phone is when it's docked.
-undo the 4 screws behind the sticker
-pop the two halves of the phone-holder part of the dock apart. if you can't get them apart with a bit of pulling get your thumb nail or a knife in between the two halves.
that's about as far as you need to go to get to the useful bits.
jamezracer said:
Stuff
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Thanks! I'll see if I can figure anything out.
I had this same idea when I first got my car dock, but I couldn't convince myself to hack my new dock. Instead I hacked an old stereo Bluetooth headset with the same mod and it works perfectly.
Don't ignore this post...
Ok So I took a dive in to it. I disassembled my dock (yes even after reading all that I could find on the internet, including this thread), but in disbelief I wanted to find out for my self. I soldered a head phone jack to the speaker wires, and thought I had something good when connected to my computer speakers. (it worked and I was surprised). But after hooking it all up in the car and actually hearing the quality, I was sorrily disappointed.
Major failure, the sound is terrible. Not tolerable at all. Comparable to scratching fingernails across a chalk board and trying to listen to some good tunes at the same time from an FM radio with very poor reception.
Heed my warning, do not attempt to mod the dock for an FM out, it will not work.
I got a 3.5mm to RCA cable originally intended for camcorders. I checked TV out and when I plugged it in I found that I could hear the audio, but the picture was scrambled. I could see a bit of my wallpaper, but the image was all scrambled. Is this a problem with my cable or my phone?
Try switching between NTSC and PAL in the TV Out Settings. See if that helps. If it doesn't, then I don't know.
Mine was like that too using the cable that came with my old Nokia phone. I tried another cable from my Hava box and it worked like normal. Guessing there is some sort of wire crossed in some that camcorders and stuff can deal with.
Most likely the colors on the cables aren't going to correctly correspond to the colors on your tv, because you don't have a samsung cable that was made for that phone. It'll still work though, just try the three different cables one at a time in yellow (video) jack on your tv until you see the picture clearly. then they other two are audio, could be a little tricker to determine which one is left and which is right however.
He said he could see his wallpaper so his connections are not crossed.
Is your audio nice and clean?
If so my guess is that you are set in PAL format and your TV display is NTSC or the other way round.
If not, could also be that the cable is of the cheaper variety and is not well shielded, or is grounding.
Noobie here so please not too much burning
I want to buy the 3.5mm to RCA TV out cord (cause I think we're in agreement that the Micro USB to HDMI is not going to happen?)
My questions is can I connect it to a monitor with Composite inputs? Will I be able to hear anything?
I want to stream my slingplayer to a TV for when I go tailgaiting and don't really feel like lugging around my LCD I have in my living room and don't want to buy a TV just for these purposes.
Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks!
I'm not familiar with that device, but as long as you can output video through the 3.5mm slot, a 3.5mm to rca cable will work fine. RCA is composite, so as long as your monitor has a yellow rca you will see video. For audio you would need red/white rca in.
I read somewhere that you have to switch the red and yellow ends of the cable because of the way the captivates 3.5 jack is wired. The video will come across the red end of the cable, the left audio on the yellow and the right audio remains on the white. My problem is, I have the 3.5 to RCA/AV cable but can't get any arrangement to work. I have tried both tv out settings on the phone and every possible color combination at the RCA end of the cable and all I get is a scrambled video and a buzzing hum that drowns out the audio. My 3.5 to RCA audio cable works flawless. Maybe I just have a bad AV cable. Anybody else have these issues or any advice?
Rooster* said:
I have tried both tv out settings on the phone and every possible color combination at the RCA end of the cable and all I get is a scrambled video
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I've got the same problem on my captivate (stock ROM) anyone can help us out? TV displays Dark Gray - Blackish things, but the thing is that at some part of it I can see my device's desaturated screen.. Any ideas what the problem is?
If you're like me, you use your Fascinate as an audio source for your car stereo. I have done a LOT of research into the whine sound and know it is from the alternator and I have seen things to go inline with the audio, but this degrades sound, which I definitely did not want. So, without further delay, here is the link:
http://n4maa.us/alternator.htm
It is from a HAM radio guy and this puts an inductor (which causes frequencies only below a certain point to pass through) and a capacitor (which smooths out the electrical current in this case - many that have built speakers before know that this is a high pass filter as well - which means that in this "kit" it takes frequencies above a certain point and they go to ground if my electrical schematic reading is correct (If I'm wrong, lemme know!)).
To sum it up - this gets rid of the whine you get when trying to charge or cradle your phone in your car while it is hooked to the aux in of your stereo.
You'll have to find a way to put this inline with the electrical supply to your device (like get an extension cord for a cigarette lighter plug with male on one end, female on the other and splice this in the middle. NOTE: the red wire attaches to the wire that feeds the tip of the cigarette adapter. the clips or outside of it is the ground, which is the line the black wire goes to. That said, if you have issues, just reply to this thread.
when I get a little extra time I'm gonna give this a try, that whining drives me absolutely crazy.
mlarma said:
If you're like me, you use your Fascinate as an audio source for your car stereo. I have done a LOT of research into the whine sound and know it is from the alternator and I have seen things to go inline with the audio, but this degrades sound, which I definitely did not want. So, without further delay, here is the link:
http://n4maa.us/alternator.htm
It is from a HAM radio guy and this puts an inductor (which causes frequencies only below a certain point to pass through) and a capacitor (which smooths out the electrical current in this case - many that have built speakers before know that this is a high pass filter as well - which means that in this "kit" it takes frequencies above a certain point and they go to ground if my electrical schematic reading is correct (If I'm wrong, lemme know!)).
To sum it up - this gets rid of the whine you get when trying to charge or cradle your phone in your car while it is hooked to the aux in of your stereo.
You'll have to find a way to put this inline with the electrical supply to your device (like get an extension cord for a cigarette lighter plug with male on one end, female on the other and splice this in the middle. NOTE: the red wire attaches to the wire that feeds the tip of the cigarette adapter. the clips or outside of it is the ground, which is the line the black wire goes to. That said, if you have issues, just reply to this thread.
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Click to collapse
Wowsers! That's a BIG filter - probably overkill for your phone or other music player. Not that it won't work, but you could probably experiment with smaller (cheaper, stealthier) components and still get rid of the wine. Might be interesting to build one in an Altoids box or something, maybe ...
For reference, my 100-watt ham radio draws slightly less than 20A when transmitting at full power.
I heard the whine sound comes from the wires current (the Power and RCA cables) running side by side ...I got rid of it just by running power on left side of car (cuz my batt is located in front left) to the amp then RCA on right side ...got rid of it and haven't heard it since...
2 Kicker CVRs 12'
Monoblock 750.1 Kicker amp
Custom sealed box tuned
Sony deck
Yellow Cap batt
5 Ferad Massive cap
Sent from my GB MIUI Fascinate
Hi all,
I have an interesting problem to pose to the techies amongst you.
I have just managed to get my dream car and now need to integrate my phone without paying the huge sums being asked for by the car manufacturers and some aftermarket electronic suppliers (car ICE specialists too). My phone is currently a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the car has MOST optical audio and satnav systems.
I'm after 3 distinct, yet simultaneous, solutions, which are : -
A/ power supply to the phone
B/ HDMI or RCA output to a dash mounted 5 inch lcd screen for satnav purposes
C/ audio output to link into the car's current MOST audio system (head unit in the dashboard, also running the car's hvac, and the amplifiers are in the boot)
My first thought was to open up the USB 3 cable and to run individual wires to 3 separate plugs for each of the 3 solutions listed above. At this point many of you may be laughing at my clearly very poor understanding of modern electronics, particularly USB, and I would not argue that at all - I'm a complete dimwit here! Obviously (I think...) the clear solution is in the fact that USB can run different objectives simultaneously.
So... I run my USB 3 CABLE from the phone to a (presumably powered?) USB 3 hub and have 3 appropriate cables plugged in and running respectively to A/ a USB cigarette lighter socket, B/ an hdmi (or RCA, or composite?) plug and C/ to a standard stereo headphone jack or socket.
I don't think A/ will work because I don't see power going from the socket back through the hub and into the phone. Suggestions welcomed as I can't see how to get power to the phone at the same time as having a USB cable supplying data out. Or is there power over USB through a hub available?
B/ seems straightforward enough.
C/ the audio then needs to go to an analog to digital / wired to optical adapter and then a 2 into 1 optical switch (so I can still have the existing output from the head unit) before plugging into the amplifiers. These 2 adapters are easily available through eBay, Amazon or Maplins as far as I can see. The issue I foresee here is will the head unit still be able to control volume, fade, etc of the signal coming from the phone? If the control of the amplifiers happens via the optical cables then presumably that won't happen if I've used a switch to change the source? Would taking the output from the phone's headphone socket be of any benefit? I doubt it as the output power from there may be quite a bit higher than from the USB port...
So you can see that I clearly need some knowledgeable direction here or I will be forever going round in ever decreasing circles!
Many thanks in advance for any help given. Cheers, Mark