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Okay, I did decide to post a shot of the PCB tonight. That’s it, in the project box I chose for making this. It seems like it’ll work out pretty good, even though I likely could have gone with a smaller box. Ah well…

That there is the PCB I made, and this is the solder side of it right after I finished cleaning it up. The etching isn’t perfect, but it meters out solidly. So, hopefully it’ll work.

The components installed there are the 1MΩ resistor to make the iPod pause when the power stops and a salvaged choke (I hope I’m calling that the right thing) to hopefully eliminate any extra noise in the +12v coming from the car.

So, that’s about that… I’m likely going to the auto show tomorrow, so maybe I’ll get back to things on Thursday. We’ll see how that goes. :)

Oh, and all the photos from today can be found starting here and on in (photo gallery retired). Yes, there are lots of the PCB. It was the first I made, so I wanted to document it.

Finished custom Aux In connector. (Click for more…)

Well, a bit more progress was made on the iPod connection for my car. Today I soldered up the Aux In connector, potted it in epoxy for strength, shrink tubed it, soldered a 3.5mm (1/8″) connector on the other end for testing purposes, and tested it out. And guess what? It works just as designed.

The connector fits into the factory connector perfectly, tells the Navigation Unit (head unit) that there is something connected to Aux In, and accepts audio in phase on the proper channels.

Also, while cutting the black TuneDok stem to fit, it seems that I squeezed everything so hard that it caused oil to be squeezed out of the vinyl. Wow.

So, yeah. Both the spacer and heads of the bolts are painted, and I’m just waiting for the aluminum plates to dry so I can photograph them. I did get this really nifty photo of wet paint on one of the aluminum washers which I think could do nicely as a flyer photo or something. Well, provided the flyer was printed fairly nicely.

Now all I need to do is order the rest of the parts I need. These should include a cast aluminum project box, PCB etching kit, tin coating kit, and a few other odds and ends which I need to finish everything up. I’ll go order those now, I think.

Connector for ‘Auxiliary Jack Assembly’ on Honda Wiring Harness
(Click for more…)

Ahh, I think I finally figured out exactly how I would make the connector for inside the dashboard of my car for inputting audio into the connector which originally plugged into the rear of the Aux In connector on my dashboard.

What I ended up doing was taking a PCB salvaged from a 2x CD-R and an old CD-ROM drive controller and pulling the long pins off of the CD-R’s PCB and the plastic .100″ spacer from the CD-ROM controller. I then straightened the pins and assembled the pins into the connector, first bridging pins 1 and 2. (This indicated to the head unit on Honda cars that there is something connected to the auxiliary input.)

I then fit everything into a random (probably the VESA connector) header on an old video card and ensured that there is 3/8″ of pin hanging out the non-wiring side of the spacer. After getting everything aligned, I applied a bit of epoxy to the back (wire) side of the spacer to hold the pins in place.

So, tomorrow, likely after the epoxy has cured, I’m going to cannibalize another MIDI cable for it’s nicely made wire assembly, and I’ll use the red / white / green wires and connect them to the left / right / return (ground) pins on the newly made connector. Then I’m going to attempt to pot the entire solder/wire portion of assembly in epoxy. This will provide a nice bunch of strain relief along with ensuring that nothing in this connector shorts out.

Even though I only need three pins, I think I’ll use a DB9 connector for the other end, the one which will connect to the junction box. It’ll be shielded, easy to solder, unlikely to fall out (screws on the connector), and quite solid.

So, yeah… It’s shaping up nicely thus far. Now it’s bed time or something.