Made my own iPod line-in connector

[W00fer]

For those who want to record on their iPod, i've finally pulled it off.
Many many thanks to my dad for the super micro soldering and pin arranging.
This is much smaller than tweezers tips, and can cause some anger.

I've bought the connector on Ebay, and reshuffled the wires.
Here it is on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/290590078788

The difficult thing is that it is glued all around. Cutted it open with a surgery knife.

Here are the pics of the end result:

yfrog.com/0o6uo4j

It is also for sale online, but costs $40, and this costed me about 8.
The one ready made only doesn't let me charge while recording, this does.

Another one, made from those white usb retractable cables is in the works, and that one was even more difficult since all soldering and the 3.5mm connector had to be glued.

[RockBoxFan]

Nice job W00fer!

I record line-in on my 1G nano all the time & it works great!  There is no audio at the earbuds from the line-in (hardware limitation), and the option to start recording from the timer does not work (bug - reported), but other than that I find that the set-up is terrific.

I also charge through the connector, so I can run long recordings without worrying about the battery running out, and the nano is fully charged by the time the recording is done.

[W00fer]

Yeah i found that limitation today, on my iPod Photo 30GB. I've reported also in Zorton's thread.
Now i use a Y splitter at the source to monitor, but the thing is i have to GAIN a lot on the iPod to get correct recording levels (otherwise it's too loud for the earbuds).

How do you solve that?

[RockBoxFan]

I thought of using the Y connector for monitoring, but never bothered doing it.  I just make a judgment on the levels based on the volume bars.  You could try a small pair of (unpowered) speakers, which is what I was thinking of doing.

What model iPod are you using, and have you tried using the record timer?

[W00fer]

I'm using an iPod Photo 30GB from 2005.


The microphone setting isn't working, at least on the Shure microphone i've tried with 300 ohm impedance. Maybe it needs a mono signal.

There is also no AGC option, which I would really like.

The record timer is something i'm going to try tonight.

[Primefalcon]

I'e been looking around for a mike on ebay for the ipod nano 1g... no luck where can you buy these things?

[RockBoxFan]

Not sure where to send you for a mic, there are many potential sources.  Remember that the ipod nano input connector is a line-in, so you will need a pre-amp to bring the mic output to line level before connecting to the nano.

Also, timer recording does not work.  This is a bug in rockbox (already reported in flyspray).