Database Users

Anyone found a Universal-specific in-car power mount?

Hi, anyone found a Universal-specific in-car power mount? I use the Brodit system at present with the power plug built into the dashboard holder, but they have yet to release one that fits the Universal

Same problem
I also use a Brodit car mount and keep checking thie website, but so far to no avail.
I will keep checking andupdate here when Brodit produce a compatible mount.

The web site is http://www.brodit.com/?l=1 but I'd suggest anyone interested in this, rather than just wait, let them know it's wanted by e-mailing them at [email protected]

Hooking a 5V 1A to the mini-USB connector is not rocket science.

Sorry cr2 but how does this give me a "mount" or a "holder"? Check out the Brodit web site above to see what we're after.

Reply from Brodit:
"We are going to release that holder in the end of this month I don't have a exact date.
It will only be on vertical mode. Futher in the future we will also have with a USB-Contact."
How on earth are they gonna make it vertical? The power socket it on the side :?

Brodit have just told me it will be a 'passive' not 'active' holder, meaning it will just be a lump of plastic with no power plug built in, so you have to fumble for the car charger each time and plug that in manually.
Plus it will hold the device vertically, when of course for SatNav you'd want it horizontally. The view out of your car windscreen is horizontal after all.
So we're back to square one. Anyone found a good holder yet for the device?

i think it means the veiw screen will be in portrait rather than landscape

Exactly. What's the point of that, when all good satnavs are landscape.

Personally I'm after a vertical car kit mount.
I run destinator 3 which I had on my Himalaya in an oem vertical car kit, which worked great for me.
When you used to use the old book style road maps did you tend to hold the book on its side to match your windscreen?

Never used old book maps, but have used a built-in SatNav and if you notice, they are always, and I mean always horizontal.

Well in that case, as was with the XDA2 / XDA2i mount that Brodit do, you can just turn it!

That's great, only problem is it still isn't an active mount, you have to plug in the charger manually. They great thing normally about the Brodit mounts is they include the charger plug.
Anyway back to topic, has anyone found a mount with charging facility yet? Must be some on the way surely... somewhere...

Car holder to use with extended battery

Just got my new extended battery yesterday, and so far it works ok.
But now I need a new carholder of course, because the old Brodit mount wont take my Uni anymore now that it has become thicker....
Anyone found a solution to this, I prefer to have it in laptop mode in the car, I use TomTom a lot!
/HM

The Exec I have with expanded battery still fits in the Brodit holder, OK so its not quite as easy to get in the holder, but it's fine once located - Mike

Mine doesn't at least I don't think it does, I haven't tried to actually force it in though, did not want to ruin the holder, can you tell me how much your Uni has gained in thickness with your extended battery?
Mine has grown almost 6 millimeters, but if yours is the same increase, I will definitely try and force it in after all.
Cheers
/HM

Oh, I forgot to ask, can you still use the socket for the charger?

At least 6MM the battery is a LI-PO cell 3150mAh device (part number PU16A), it is a tight fit in the Brodit mount but it will go in, and yes I can still use the charger cable - Mike

is the extended batter alot better ?
as i'me getting an Xda Exec this week

I use the extended battery when away from home with the device, the main reason is Internet access, the battery gets hammered when connected via 3G so the extra weight and capacity is worth it for me, not for everyone though - the Exec is a lump to start with add the extended battery pack and forget the shirt pocket to carry it in! - Mike

[Q] Car holder

Does the Desire Z have any contacts for charging & data. Looking at the pictures it seems that the usb connection is on the side which is a bit awkward in a car holder arrangement.
It would be great to drop it into a cradle (car or desk) without having to fiddle about plugging bits in, but it seems that decent manufacturer's accessories are a thing of the past..?
With the navigation a prominent feature, it really would make sense to have a proper accessory to mount the phone correctly.

I really would like to know this as well. I also want to know if you can route audio through micro-usb port. It works out really good in my G1 right now, I only have to plug in 1 cord for both audio and charging. I would hate to have to plug in 2 cords, micro-usb for charging and 3.5mm for audio, especially since they are on different sides of the phone.

I have the nexus one stand and its amazing. I hope there is some sort of dock. I hate trying to plug it in.

This is my concern - I don't think the regular Desire has any docking contacts (not certain on this though)

The TMo G2 has no dock contacts.

Use these car docks
I've been using the pro clip car docking systems for over 5 years now ... changed 2 cars and on my 3rd phone ...
good solid build, easy install and especially uninstall without damage to vehicle, etc.
I'm buying hte HTC desire Z as soon as it's available from bell in Canada (will unlock it and use it on Fido) but I already ordered the proclip mount for it (the one with car cigarette lighter plug charger) - it supports the phone both vertically and horizontally with or without the keyboard exposed (slide in from the side into the usb plug for charging). see proclipusa dot com and look for the desire z

Ok, I just got my holder
luciantm said:
I've been using the pro clip car docking systems for over 5 years now ... changed 2 cars and on my 3rd phone ...
good solid build, easy install and especially uninstall without damage to vehicle, etc.
I'm buying hte HTC desire Z as soon as it's available from bell in Canada (will unlock it and use it on Fido) but I already ordered the proclip mount for it (the one with car cigarette lighter plug charger) - it supports the phone both vertically and horizontally with or without the keyboard exposed (slide in from the side into the usb plug for charging). see proclipusa dot com and look for the desire z
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
took a bit to get used to the side slide-in (due to usb on the side instead of on the bottom) but it really works great - got the one with cigarette lighter charger - this way I can use navigation without draining the battery

luciantm said:
took a bit to get used to the side slide-in (due to usb on the side instead of on the bottom) but it really works great - got the one with cigarette lighter charger - this way I can use navigation without draining the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It makes sense having the usb on the side of the phone on slider designs. With a bottom mounted usb connector the usb cable gets in the way of your hand when charging the phone when you're typing on the keyboard.

brodit.se are making a car dock to the DZ . And I hope that's with a charger .
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=799621

Correction bordit.se have made 3 car docks 2 with USB Charger.
http://twitpic.com/34p7xl http://twitpic.com/34p7zi http://twitpic.com/34p7vv

Incredible car project

I've had my Incredible for a month or two now, and rooted it the day I picked it up. I've dug all over this forum learning the ins and outs of this phone, and figured I'd finally give something back.
Car audio has always been a big hobby of mine, and I actually competed in sound quality a couple of years back. So, while researching the Incredible, as soon as I discovered the tv-out cable, my first thought was to feed it into my car. I was very proud of myself thinking I was the first person to come up with this...until I started searching, and realized I wasn't. At all.
Either way, it was hard finding info on this solution because google pulls nothing but details about the cable, and very little on the solution, so I figured I'd put what I've got here.
I have a 2005 Honda Accord with the factory 6 disc changer in the dash. The dual zone climate controls are integrated into the factory radio, so if you remove it, you lose that functionality (which I didn't want to do). There is a large storage pocket that is removable underneath the radio that allows for an aftermarket head unit, and lower dash kits are available for doing that.
I've gotten out of competition, and just have the factory deck now, but wanted a way to play music from any phone I had. PAC makes auxiliary input adapters that integrate with factory radios for just about any car. I bought one for my car, installed it, and can now plug in anything via 3.5mm headphone jack or by RCA.
When I got the phone, my first idea was a car dock where I could plug in the headphone jack and then charge it, but I hated the idea of having to deal with two cables every time. I had started off using CM7, liked it, but read people complaining about no tv-out functionality, which I could care less about, but the option being available meant that audio going out would be no problem, and since the cable has another input for charging, I could have a one plug solution, and so the project began.
I flashed my phone to SR4.0 to have the tv-out capability, (and love the ROM. I like a lot of the more sense based layouts)
First, the cable. The phone only recognizes tv-out when the video input is connected. This posed a problem for me, as I only needed audio. If the solution has been posted before, I couldn't find it, but if you take a female rca jack, or use a male rca jack with a coupler, and short the signal and ground wires together, the phone goes into tv-out mode and will send audio. I had a cheap pair of radio shack rca's laying around, and cut one end off to test this, and it worked flawlessly. In car audio, they're called muting plugs, and are used to troubleshoot engine noise issues.
Second, the charger. I didn't want to use my car charger port, so after some light research to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I confirmed you can take a car charger apart, solder a ground wire to the wire connected to the metal that sticks out of the side of the charger, and solder a power wire to the part going to the tip. On the charger I used, a fuse was inline, and if you want to retain that, you can use a large zip tie and heatshrink to retain it. I didn't b/c the charger was cheap, and if something was to ever short, it'd burn that out first. Regardless, solder leads to power and ground, and then tap into the wiring going into your factory accessory outlet (or cigarette lighter). Use a test light or multimeter to determine power from ground.
Third, the dock. Google sucks at finding good horizontal docking solutions. My first idea was to buy a horizontal cradle and fab it into the lower dash kit, but that's a lot of cutting, as well as having to remove the usb plug on the dock (because it's not extUSB), and really at the end of the day, you just need an L shaped piece of plastic with a hole cut out where the usb is. I was looking at Droid X docks with my friend, and noticed there are a lot of swivel mount car docks for that phone, and thought that'd be a lot easier to do. Further searching led me to proclip.com where they have docks for about any mobile device. *I tried posting a link, but spam got me* I found them while searching for docks thanks to someone on an ATV forum linking the site. It seems people are using their droids for navigation while going off-roading, and use these docks to keep them anchored.
On the quick search at the bottom of the main page, check the box saying you already have a mount, then under holders, select HTC Incredible to pull up the docks. I purchased 511147, holder with tilt swivel, and received it two days after ordering. It's very rugged, and the swivel seems well built. The mount on the right provides room to comfortably plug in a charger or cable, and I'm going to fab a piece to attach the tv-out cable and charger, and route the wire behind it and through the kit. The dock will be attached to the lower dash kit, and a little ABS plastic, epoxy putty, and paint will smooth over any seams. The other nice thing about this for me is the lower dash kit has a cutout for an aftermarket radio, and a spare pocket underneath. Using the dock, I still have full use of the pocket.
If you don't want to do this much custom fabrication, you can use one of their solutions. On the main page, select your car make and model, and they will provide you with the mounts they have. Their mounts attach to the car without screws or tape, and then from there you select your dock, which attaches to the mount.
Sorry this is long and somewhat rambly, but I've seen a lot of posts and questions asking about this kind of solution, with no clear definitive answer. I drove to work this morning listening to pandora via the tv out cable on my factory radio, with the phone being charged and zero problems.
Another side note, there is an adapter for the HTC Hero that is an extUSB plug that goes into a piece that has extUSB input, power input, and 3.5mm out. It's a lot more ideal for this solution, but doesn't work. The extUSB plug is shaped differently, and the pinouts are laid out differently in the plug. If someone was good at soldering, it'd make an even cleaner solution, as you could rout the adapter behind the dash and plug everything into it.
If someone was interested in swapping the ends on that adapter with one that'd fit the Incredible, I'd be willing to pay for it, just for the lower profile and aesthetics of what I'm doing.
I'll update this with pictures once I get it all installed. Hopefully this is helpful, and I didn't just waste a bunch of time typing what was in another post that I've been unable to find.

Thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my life. Just kidding. Thanks for the write up. Can't wait to see pictures.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I was going to wait and reply later, But I have been reading up on this subject, There are a lot of people using pads and removing there radios. So to see a phone doing this hope the pics are good

It'll be next week before I can get any up, headed out of town for the weekend tomorrow, but will grab pics of what I have now and will show the install progress as I go.
Hopefully I can get to 11 posts between now and then so I can throw up pics and links to what's going on.

[Q] Help! Car Dock Mode not working

Hello All
I'm extremely used to be using Car Dock Mode with Audio Out on my Galaxy S2 while driving (plug into the original dock, and all was automatically switched to the car mode)
Now, with my fresh S4, I wanted to have the same... I know that there is no original Smart Car dock for S4, but I wanted to do a small DIY with an regular dock, by sticking the S2 Dock circuit board to the regular dock.
As described here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=820275&page=18
Resistors are supposed to be the same as for the S2, so it should work fine, but id doesn't work whatsoever... what's worse, the battery is not charging.
I was trying different ROMs and kernels, but neither of them seem to work.
has anyone had a chance to apply this patch: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=32688111#post32688111
or maybe able to make the Car Mode working other way