Nexus One Car Dock Repair

Intro: Nexus One Car Dock Repair

  Let's face it nexus one owners, we bought in on an accessory that is now out of warranty, and was defectively designed on the top bar. It's a fantastic car dock that triggers the car home app, turns on bluetooth, has speakers and charges the phone.  But, when that top tab breaks at that point, it no longer applies sufficient pressure on the phone to activate the cradle charger.  HTC won't admit to a design flaw, but I know that it is one, because nearly every single break that I have seen in photos show that it fails in the EXACT SAME SPOT EACH TIME.  To those that have braved the HTC support line and actually gotten a replacement out of them, good on you.  This is for the rest of us that either the dock is out of warranty, or we couldn't get HTC to admit that it made a product with a design flaw. 

STEP 1: Tools and Supplies

Tools and supplies that I used are as follows;
1.  The damaged dock in question

2.  A leftover wire (I used a cat 5 patch cable)

3. A wire cutter (I used the cutter on my leatherman)

4. An x-acto knife

5. Superglue

6.  A surface that you can cut and glue on (that isn't your expensive laptop that you just bought three months ago like I nearly started doing)

STEP 2: Use the Glue

Put some glue in the crack and over it, then hold it together with some pressure for a minute. 

Place the dock aside and let it cure while you move on to the next step.

STEP 3: Prepare the Wire

Now, here I cut a segment of the cat 5 cable with my leatherman, then cut into the wire sheath with the x-acto knife. 

After cutting it open, remove the contents and save for another project if you like.  After that, cut a segment of the wire sheath long enough to cover the crack in the dock and overlap on both sides. Mine was  3/4 of a centimeter, but you could do it longer as well. 

STEP 4: Paste It On

Try whatever wire sheath you have over the crack as a dry fit.  Trim whatever excess you have and don't need.

Apply a dab of superglue to the crack again, over the already dried glue and spread it all the way around the crack. 

Now press on the wire sheath/patch over the glue.  Hold it in place over the glue for at least a minute.  Make sure you press it until you see glue coming out from the sides of the patch.  Make sure you don't accidentally glue your fingers to the dock. 

After that, put a dab of glue on over the patch, completely covering it, adding a bit more strength to it. 

Leave it overnight in a cool, dry place to let the glue cure completely. 

STEP 5: Enjoy Your Repaired Dock

Now, place back where you had it an have fun, but remember that you have just patched the crack, not melted and resealed the plastic. 

As such, you shouldn't press on that tab anymore, because that twisting stress on that plastic bar is what caused it to fail in the first place.

From now on you should pop your phone in and out in this fashion

Do it like this and the dock, with the patch should last you for much longer.

NOTE:  standard disclaimer time.  I take no responsibility for damage you may cause to your nexus one car dock, your nexus one, or self if you are playing with super glue and sharp objects. 

Comments

[davidingram]

maybe you could use a small section of heatshrink, slide it one one side, glue the plastic, slide the heatshrink over the join and heat it til it shrinks, bingo

[Dark]

That is a fantastic idea. I haven't had heat shrink in about two years, so it hadn't occurred to me. The main thing is that the section needs to be semi-rigid. Unsure how rigid one layer of heat shrink may be.

[number8wire]

I've made a Nexus One car dock repair instructable as well. I didn't notice yours until after I had published it!
The main differences are that I used a different glue and heat shrink tube instead of cable sheath.

[davidingram]

I have now done mine with epoxy resin plus heat shrink. Remember the heat shrink gets more rigid as it shrinks. Its turned out almost perfect but I heated it a bit much and the dock plastic started to melt underneath. Be careful, it seems to melt result. Ran that edge under cold water to limit the damage. I also made another mod to the dock which also helps. I will post images here when I get a chance, took some photos as I did it

[davidingram]

Mine broke exactly the same place. :-(

[bklippel]

I hope this works for mine. It broke exactly like this days past warranty and HTCs poor support would not replace it. I'm on my 2nd Nexus One too, because of the faulty power button. I recommend people avoid HTC, they seem to have very poor build quality, or at least incompetent engineers.

[Dark]

I would go with incompetent engineers. They quality test their phones to the point of failure, and yet I don't think that they did as extensive quality testing with the dock.

[bklippel]

What do you think about using something like mighty putty as the reinforcement instead of the cable sheath?

[Dark]

If you use a putty then you would have to make sure that the putty was even on the parts that touch the phone. In my dock, the wire sheath pushes the phone out of the dock ever so slightly.