Official Slacker Forums

[daffydork]

I just had a crazy idea last night. What if Slacker could make a conversion device that cradled the bottom of the G2 that was then able to slide down over all those nifty ipod accessories?? It's cool having Slacker merch for playing at home, in the car, etc. but since there is already so many 'gadgets' out there for the ipod, why not utilize it? Just an idea. I'm sure it's much easier said than done, but was just a thought. I haven't even used an ipod much so I don't even know if they would be comparable in size or not, but I thought that would be really sweet.

[beartard]

It's possible, even for a do-it-yourselfer. They do not use the same type of connector, but ipod pinouts are all over the place. Slacker hasn't released their connector pinout yet (please do it, slacker) but people have already started tracing the pins on the dock connector. It wouldn't take a whole lot of skill to make some sort of adapter to pass power and audio, at least, from one to the other.

I wonder if Slacker built any remote-control capabilities into their player through the connector?

[MikeV]

Slacker's connector is the CEA-2017 standard connector. The specifications of the connector, including the pinout, are available to engineers/developers for $71 (or $53.25 if you're a CEA member) from the Consumer Electronics Association.

http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_3980.asp

[beartard]

True, but it would be nice to know exactly which parts of the specs Slacker actually used in their design, since the original specs can support things like digital video, remote control, audio, power, etc. It's a generic spec so that many different manufacturers can use the same connector, using only those parts that apply to their device, without causing incompatibility with other devices.

I've taken apart my dock and have traced a few grounded pins as well as the USB power pins. I'd need some time and a big magnifying glass (or some good, digital pictures where I could superimpose the back onto the front for easier tracing.) The line-out and headphone jacks have some standard, surface-mount LC filter circuits built in. Some traces go underneath the jacks as well, so it's a difficult, time-consuming task to figure it out.

[thatoneguy]

I know this isn't dealing directly with the main guys post but since beartard sounds like he knows what hes talking about and I have been wondering about this..

Is there any place I could purchase an adapter that takes a Male outlet (that plugs into the built in ipod Female output) and convert that into the cable that plugs into a head phone slot?

The adapter would have to have a female ipod connector on one end and a male headphone jack on the other end.

[trickywombat]

Are you referring to something like this?

...Is there any place I could purchase an adapter that takes a Male outlet (that plugs into the built in ipod Female output) and convert that into the cable that plugs into a head phone slot?...

[beartard]

Are you referring to something like this?

...Is there any place I could purchase an adapter that takes a Male outlet (that plugs into the built in ipod Female output) and convert that into the cable that plugs into a head phone slot?...

Almost, but not quite. Dude wants an ipod-female to 1/8" headphone adapter cable. That way he could plug the slacker's headphone output into an ipod adapter. And yes, that would be pretty easy to build. My headunit in the car (a JVC) has an adapter with both the ipod-male plug and a 1/8" headphone plug, so I didn't really consider it.

But places like Mouser and Digikey are great if you need an electronic part like an ipod plug. A little solder, some heat-shrink tubing, and you're all set.