Boom Box Ipod Dock / Homemade iHome

This was my first mod, I took the idea from another instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/PLAY-AND-RECHARGE-IPOD-USING-OLD-BOOMBOX---Hints-a/

I did run into some snags that the guy above covered but i found a way to do better.
I did do this instructable after building it becuse I wasnt planning on making a instructable.

Backround:

I used an old Memorex boom box that I had lying around that the cd player didn't work in.
And this will be for moderate modders probably not for beginners. What i wanted to do was make a ipod dock that would charge and play music though the built in speakers, all within the boom box with no other wires besides the power.

I have an addon that i have yet to do: Add blue led's to the inside of the boom box.

Mine only fits the ipod touch!

Step 1 Docking Station

Well first I needed a place to hold my ipod while it played music and charged so I decided to dremal the insert that came with the ipod. But I ran into a problem, i didn't want to remove my case when I plugged it in so i did more dremeling to make the slot bigger. Also i had to dremal out a spot in the boom box for the insert to insert into.

After i had gotten the insert to fit into the slot in the boom box I needed to make holes for the headphone cable and the charging cable. Below is the final product! Hot glued into the boom box.

Comments

[eli2k]

Hey, how did you determine the impedence values for the ipod and cd player? If you use other mp3 players, wouldn't they have differing impedence values (though I guess they would be low, instead of high like the cd player)...

[tysonscott2002]

haha yea! i did the same thing before i saw this instructable! but wouldnt it be great to get your hands on one of those cables that have everything in just the usb plug with the stupid apple "verification chip"

[tysonscott2002]

a much simpler way to do this, is to simply bridge the data connections with a 10k ohm resistor, that acts as the "hand shake" i have a touch 2g, and it also works with everything ive tried =)

[Phil B]

I am impressed with your knowledge of electronics at age 17. I had never heard of T-pads. How do you know how many decibels to drop the iPods output to match the signal insertion point on the boombox?

[GamingRobot]

I looked up online for the ohms of the cd input and the ipod output<br/><br/>I used this url to calculate the t-pad resistor values<br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nu9n.com/tpad-calculator.html">http://www.nu9n.com/tpad-calculator.html</a><br/>

[The magical duct tape kid]

Very Nifty