iPod dock adapter for the Motorola Droid/Milestone

Categories Hardware, Mods

—> The PDF version of this article can be found here.

Motorola Milestone iPod dock adapterManufacturers of electronic devices don’t seem to be able to get a global standard on docking connectors, resulting in that you usually end up buying a new dock for every electronic device you acquire. In the past I bought multiple iPod docks (also see my other article about bypassing the Apple video out protection on older docks here), but I own more devices than just the ones from Apple. My current mobile phone is a Motorola Milestone (or Droid if you are from the US), which of course does not fit on an iPod dock. Not willing to buy new docks I decided to build an adapter to enable me to use my iPod docks with my mobile phone. This article will describe step-by-step how I have built this dock adapter.

Because I am from Europe (the Netherlands to be precise) my Motorola device is named a Milestone, but the whole article of course is just as applicable to the Motorola Droid. For the ease of use I will just refer to the ‘Motorola Milestone’ in this article from now on.

Since all the information in this document is gathered from the internet or analyzed by myself it could be that there are some errors in this document, I am sorry if that is the case. Any opinion expressed in this document is solely my own.

Goals

The goal of this project is to create a dock adapter which enables the Motorola Milestone to charge, output music and switch to docking (multimedia) mode. The Motorola Milestone charges through the micro USB connector on its side. To enable charging through our dock adapter we will need to equip it with a micro USB connector.

Since the Motorola Milestone does not provide audio output through the micro USB connector, we will have to use the headphone connector on the top of the device to enable audio out.

To enable automatic switching to docking mode on the Motorola Milestone the device is equipped with a magnetic sensor. When a magnet is placed against a certain location on the device it will recognize the dock type (Media or Car) by the polarization of the magnet. With some testing I found the best location for the magnet is at the back of the device above the micro USB connector and a bit to the right. This location is shown on the picture below which shows the back of the Motorola Milestone.

Milestone dock adapter magnet locationUsing a magnet in our dock adapter will enable us to use the multimedia docking mode.

So, our dock connector will need to have a micro USB and audio connector as well as a magnet in it. The last part to enable us to connect it to the iPod dock will of course be a connector which fits the iPod dock itself. The schematic design for the dock adapter is shown in the next image.
Milestone dock adapter design

Parts

This chapter will list all the parts that are needed to create the dock adapter. The specific parts used in this document might not be the most obvious, but they were cheap and available at the time of executing this project.

iPod dock connector

Milestone Dock Adapter iPod cableSince good dock connectors seem to be quite expensive and hard to find, I decided to buy a cheap Dock extender cable and harvest the connector from that. The Dock extender cable has been bought from DealExtreme for just $3.14:

Dock Extender Male/Female Cable for All iPod/iPhone 2G/3G

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.21892

The dock connector from this cable has almost all the pins available to make use of and provides nice solder pads to connect wires to. Since this is not always the case it is good to keep this in mind when looking for a suitable dock connector.

3,5 mm stereo audio plug

Milestone Dock Adapter AudiocableThe audio cable I used in this project was one I had lying around. It suited this project fine since it had an angled jack connector, which I preferred. An alternative cable could be bought from DealExtreme for just $1.80:

3.5mm Male to 3.5mm + 2.5mm Audio Male Audio Cable

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39763

Of course any 3,5 mm stereo audio plug will be fine.

.

Micro USB connector

Milestone Dock Adapter MicroUSB cableThe Micro USB connector I used in this project has been harvested from a headphone adapter for another Motorola device. I bought this connector with the hope it would enable audio out from the micro USB port of the Motorola Milestone (which it of course did not). This adapter has been bought from DealExtreme for just $2.27:

3.5mm Stereo Audio Headphone Adapter For Motorola V8/V9

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.30099

Of course any micro USB connector will be fine.

Magnets

Milestone Dock Adapter MagnetsTo enable the docking mode on the Motorola Milestone we will need some magnets, the following magnets from DealExtreme will suit our needs just fine for only $2.09:

Super-Strong Rare-Earth RE Magnets (10-Pack 9 mm)

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3461

I ended up using four out of the ten magnets.

.

Polymorph

Milestone Dock Adapter PolymorphTo create the encasing of the dock adapter we will use Polymorph, which is a polymer that can easily be moulded when heated at moderate temperatures. Polymorph is great stuff for prototyping and can be remoulded time after time. I bought my Polymorph from eBay, but it can be found at various places online. Some more info can be found on the website of the company I bought it from:

http://www.c-d-c-shop.com/polymorph.htm

.

.

Pin outs

Before we can start to build the dock we will need the pinouts of the various components. This chapter will show the pinouts for all the components used.

3,5mm stereo audio plug pinout

The following image shows the pinout of the 3,5mm stereo audio plug

Milestone dock adapter pinout audio

The pinout for the 3,5mm stereo audio plug can also be found online at:

  • http://pinouts.ru/Home/Tele35s_pinout.shtml

Micro USB pinout

The following image shows the pinout of the micro USB plug from the Motorola Milestone side, not the cable side. The cable side is the same pinout in opposite direction.


Milestone dock adapter pinout micro USB

The pinout for the micro USB connector can also be found online at:

  • http://pinoutsguide.com/CellularPhones-Nokia/micro_usb_connector_pinout.shtml

Dock connector pinout

The following image shows the pinout of the Apple iPod dock connector on the board we will be using to create our adapter.

Milestone dock adapter pinout dock
The pinout for the iPod dock connector can also be found online at:

  • http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml

Wiring

Now that we have all the pinouts for the components we can now see how we should wire the components together. The table below shows which pins should be connected together.

Component Connector Wire colour Connected to
3,5 mm stereo GND (audio) Metal Dock 2
Audio right Red Dock 3
Audio left White Dock 4
Micro USB GND (USB) Copper Dock 16
Vcc Red Dock 23
Data – Green – Blue Data +

The colours mentioned in the table refer to the wire colours of the components named in this article, when using other components these wire colours will probably be different.

To enable the Motorola Milestone to accept the power on the USB port, the USB Data- and Data+ connections should be linked to each other. Without these points connected the device will not charge.

The following image shows the wiring inside our dock adapter.

Milestone dock adapter wiring

Building the adapter

Having the different components, the design and the wiring schematics, it is now time to actually build the adapter. After soldering the components together I shortened the original dock encasing a bit because it was larger than needed. To hold everything together I filled the dock encasing with hot glue, resulting in the prototype shown below.

Milestone dock adapter bare

Polymorph encasing

The prototype showed above already works as a dock adapter however it does not hold the Motorola Milestone in its place. To build an encasing for the dock adapter that holds the Motorola Milestone in its place we will be using Polymorph.

Polymorph consists of small plastic pellets which can be melted in hot water. My general approach is to melt the pellets in hot water, press them together and making small sheets of plastic of it. These plastic sheets can be cut with scissors to preferred sizes. I personally like to use a hot air gun to melt these sheets again and then use them in the project. The encasing of the adapter has been made of multiple layers of Polymorph which have been melted together. The encasing also holds the magnets for the docking mode option.

Result

The following images show the end result of our Motorola Milestone iPod dock adapter.

Milestone dock adapter

Milestone dock adapter end result 1


Milestone dock adapter backside

Milestone dock adapter end result 2

When the Motorola Milestone is connected to the adapter it will go into multimedia docking mode right away and start charging. After connecting the audio cable to the headphone connector it will output its audio to the dock as well. The Motorola Milestone is standing solid on the adapter and works great.

This article showed how to build an iPod dock adapter for the Motorola Milestone, however this information can easily be used to create adapters for other devices as well. If anyone is going to build a similar adapter for the Motorola Milestone or another device, I am for sure interested to know about it.

The adapter that I have built might not be the quality of an official one, but it is of course a prototype and it works pretty well. It probably is not going to happen, but I would really appreciate if any company out there would just build and sell adapters like this.

Thijs (Thice) Bosschert
http://www.thice.nl

122 Comments

  • Using iPod docks with Droid via an adapter – Hack a Day
    16/06/2010

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  • Stacey Turner
    16/06/2010

    I have wished for one of these! You are brilliant for creating a working model. Thank you for sharing your findings. Hopefully, these will come available for purchase!

  • suli
    16/06/2010

    Great work!! Thanks a lot for sharing… this comes in handy.

  • luis javier
    17/06/2010

    wow
    les quedo muiy bien felicidades XD

  • gfrey
    17/06/2010

    Does the other end of the dock extender have the same sort of circuit board?

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  • admin
    17/06/2010

    @gfrey
    It sadly didn’t in the cable I used, it actually surprised me this side had. Maybe you have more luck in other cables.

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  • BrianM
    17/06/2010

    Interesting & Thanks! The HTC Magic has the annoying HTC “proprietary micro-USB plus audio connector” rather than 3.5 or 2.5 mm audio.

    It should therefore be possible to create a similar connector for my old Bose iPod dock, with the added advantage of not needed the separate audio cable. Maybe HTC did know what they were doing.

    Hmmm – the only thing left to consider for the design is what artistic shape to make the polymorph encasing…

  • fast
    17/06/2010

    I wish you could do the same for htc magic and publish it here.

    Anyway, this is fantastic and I like it!

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    17/06/2010

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  • admin
    17/06/2010

    @fast
    I wouldn’t mind working out the same stuff for the HTC Magic, but I don’t have one. I do however have a HTC Touch lying around, which might have the same connector but runs on Windows Mobile. I will put it on my ‘possible future projects’ list 😉

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    […] Droid made to work with iPod docks using unholy homemade adapter .at15t_email{background-position:0px -4120px} Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile Peripherals Droid made to work with iPod docks using unholy homemade adapter By Vladislav Savov posted Jun 17th 2010 6:33AM What, our ultra-special Droid dock's not enough for you? There's now another way to avoid buying Motorola's official accessories, though this one's a bit more blasphemous. Thijs Bosschert over in the Netherlands has put together a fully fledged adapter for his Milestone (aka Droid European Edition), which allows it to interface with docks designed for iPods and iPhones. He's done it using mostly parts he had lying around — and a well-placed magnet, of course — though he had to resort to using the 3.5mm headphone jack to extract audio from the device. The result might not look like a million bucks, but then it didn't cost that much either. See more pictures and Thijs' full how-to guide at the source. Hack A Day Thice.nl […]

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  • Frank
    17/06/2010

    Any chance you are selling these adapters already made?

  • admin
    17/06/2010

    @Frank
    At this moment I have no plans on doing that. But I will think about it, also depends on what you want to pay for it of course.

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  • p8ntblljnkie
    17/06/2010

    GREAT Product!!!! make for Incredible,… i’ll pay $50 plus parts!!!! for It!

  • [dock de som] Conecte seu Motorola Droid em qualquer dock para iPhone/iPod | TargetHD Gadget Blog
    17/06/2010

    […] Um usuário utilizou-se da popular gambiarra para poder usar o seu Motorola Droid com um dock multimídia originalmente dedicado para o iPod e iPhone. E deu certo: para as conexões, ele utilizou um cabo extensor de iPod e um adaptador micro USB para Motorola V8/V9, fazendo as devidas soldas correspondentes, de modo que o áudio do aparelho passe a partir da saída minijack até o conector proprietário da base. Você pode ver o passo-a-passo desta alternativa criada clicando aqui. […]

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    17/06/2010

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  • Shawn
    18/06/2010

    I (stupidly) built an iPod dock into my car. It still looks good, but I don’t use my iPod anymore. Thanks to this brilliant idea I will build a Droid adapter to convert the iPod dock into a Droid dock. Thanks so much, I’ve already ordered my dock extension cable!

  • admin
    18/06/2010

    @p8ntblljnkie
    I guess the Droid Incredible is a HTC device, isn’t it? In that case it would be the same approach as the HTC Magic requested above. I might look into that in the near future.

  • admin
    18/06/2010

    @Shawn
    Please send me a picture of the adapter when you are done! 🙂

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