- USB data cable CA-42
- 1/8" stereo panel mount audio jack (Picked up locally)
- 1/8" stereo phone plug (Picked up locally)
- CDROM to sound card audio cable (Had a few of them already)
- Silver-bearing solder (Had this already)
- Drill
- 1/4" and 1/8" drill bits
- Ruler or tape measure
- Jeweler's screwdrivers
- Soldering iron or torch (The latter is recommended)
- A piece of scrap 2x4 wood
- A multimeter
- Knife or sandpaper
- Electrical tape
- Epoxy or silicone caulk (optional)
Put the shield back on the plug, but keep the jack attached. Drill a 1/8" and 1/4" hole in your scrap lumber, starting with the 1/8" hole. This will be a holder for your plug and jack when you solder it. Drill the holes on the wide side of the lumber, and far enough apart so that the wood doesn't break when you put a little stress on it. Insert the end of the audio plug's shield into the 1/4" hole.
Cut the audio cable in half, but make sure that the piece you are going to use is at least the length of the iConnect. That should give you enough slack. Strip each of the wires back at least 1/2". An easy way to do this is to use your soldering iron to melt off the insulation at the point that you want to strip it to. Then just pull off the separated piece of insulation. Heat the end of each stripped wire with your soldering iron, and tin it with solder. Do the same for each of the terminals on the jack. Use a knife or piece of sandpaper to scratch the terminals before tinning. The solder will adhere easier.
Solder the wires to the jack, starting with the black wire. Solder it to the terminal that is sticking out the side of the jack. Refer to the picture of the attached jack and plug. Heat the wire and terminal together with your iron, then remove the iron and quickly touch it with your solder. If it is hot enough, more solder will melt and you'll have a good connection. Don't touch the solder with your iron to melt it, as you usually won't get a good connection that way. Attach the red wire to the terminal closest to the one with the black wire. Then attach the white wire to the last terminal.
Unplug the jack and plug. Bend the terminal that has the black wire attached down towards the casing of the jack. Wrap a piece of electrical tape around the body of the jack and the exposed terminals. You don't really have to do this, but I'm pretty paranoid about it. Be careful not to bend the other 2 terminals too close together when wrapping it, but they can be bent a little bit towards each other. Make sure that you can see the knurled nut completely when you do this, as you don't want the tape to interfere with screwing the jack to your case. We're now going to work on the other end. The red wire needs to be removed from the plug on the other end and moved next to the black wire. On one side of the plug you can see a metal clip showing through a hole. Notice how there's a little tab holding it in. Very carefully insert a flat jeweler's screwdriver or other flat object under that tab towards the wires, then gently pull the red wire out of the plug. Insert it into the hole next to the black wire. There's a small piece sticking up from the metal clip. That should face upwards out the hole. You can test whether you have put it in correctly by gently tugging on the red wire. If you didn't put it in correctly, it will come out without bending up that little tab. Here's the before and after pictures:
Cut the plug that inserts into the phone from the USB data cable, and leave about 1 1/2" of wire sticking out. Strip the wires back so that we can test which corresponds to each pin on the plug. Your plug should look like the following when you're ready:
Using your multimeter set to resistance, test each wire against each pin of the plug until you find the corresponding one. If you find it hard to touch just one pin with the probe, and easy way to do it is to start with the one in the middle of the plug, then touch the middle and the one next to it, then so on. The one that your meter responds to will be the last one touched. Write down which pins correspond to which wires. This is how mine worked out:
Remove the shield from the audio plug, and slip it onto the USB data cable so that the threaded part is pointing toward the cut end of the wire. I repeat, slip the shield onto the USB data cable. You won't be able to do it once you're done soldering. If you're not sure of the direction, test it. Strip the outer insulation of the cable back about 1 1/2", then the inner insulation of each of the wires back 1/2". Tin the wires, then scratch the terminals of the plug. Insert the plug into the 1/8" hole in the lumber, then tin the terminals. Starting with the ground wire, solder the wires to the terminals. Refer back to the following diagram and your notes on wire colors to line up your wiring:
Wrap small pieces of electrical tape around the RX/TX lugs and any exposed wire on them, but not enough to interfere with the shield going on. Orient the wire on the plug so that the outer insulation clears the 2 tabs on the end of the ground lug, and crimp them down around the wire. Stuff any excess wire between and underneath the data lugs. Slide the plug shield down and thread it onto the plug.
Using your flat jeweler's screwdriver, remove each of the rubber feet from the bottom of your iConnect. Using a small Philips screwdriver, remove the screws that were underneath the feet. Starting with one of the corners, carefully pry apart one the the sides of the casing using your flat screwdriver. Once you have a bit of a gap, stick something in there so that it doesn't want to pop back together. Work around to the front or back, depending how you started, then up the back or down the front. You will hear popping noises when you do this, but if you don't apply too much force you won't break anything. When you have the 2 pieces separated, don't just pull them completely apart. Turn the unit right side up with the 3 USB ports facing you. Flip the top of the casing over as if you were reading a book. There's a wire attached to the top for the WIFI antenna. Pry the motherboard up from the front using your fingers, then flip it over the same way as you did the top.
Next, you need to drill a hole in the bottom half of the case. Turn the back of the case toward you, and measure 5/8" to the left of the Ethernet port and 3/8" from the top edge. That will be the center of your hole. The hole will be between the Ethernet port and the power port. Using a nail, wood screw or ice pick, make a little starter indentation for the hole you are going to drill. It doesn't have to go all the way through, just enough for the tip of the drill bit to catch. Drill your hole at very low speed, and push it through very slowly.
Remove the knurled nut from the jack, and insert it into the hole you just made, from the inside of the case. Orient it so that the black wire is on the side that points toward the power plug and away from the Ethernet port. It just fits better that way. Screw the nut back on. You don't have to make it extremely tight. Just snug enough to hold. Flip the motherboard back over, and slide it underneath the jack and into place on the bottom. Be careful with the antenna wire again. Here is a picture of how it should look:
Plug the other end of the jack wire into this connector:
Orient the plug so that you can see the metal clips from the top:
Make sure that no wire is connected to the pin closest to the back of the iConnect. That's power, which is not needed or wanted in this application. If you wired things incorrectly, you won't break anything unless you connect a wire to that pin.
If you're using Windows on your main computer, download the driver for the USB data cable here. Install the driver, then plug it in. If you're using XP, use Hyperterminal to connect. If using Vista or Windows 7, use Putty. Set the port configuration to 115200, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit. If you're using Linux, use screen or minicom. On Mac OS X, use screen. Plug the data cable into a USB port on your computer, and go to the device settings to make sure that it's working correctly. Then start your terminal progran and set the proper port up correctly. The device manager in Windows should tell you which port it is. Under Linux, execute dmesg to see what port to use. If you don't have any other USB serial ports, it should be /dev/ttyUSB0. Then, plug it into the jack on your iConnect, and carefully plug the iConnect into the power adapter. Plug the power adapter into the wall. If you did everything correctly, you should see some information come up. If it's not working, don't despair. Make sure you don't have any shorts in your plug. If you do, fix it with a little more tape or even some silicone caulk or epoxy. The latter will make your cable end very strong, and you may want to do it for that reason. You also may have switched the RX and TX wires on the jack cable. Try switching the red and white wires on the plug that goes on the motherboard jumper.
Once you have it all working, unplug the iConnect and flip the top onto the bottom half. Snap it together, flip it over, and put the screws back in. Turn the screws backwards while pushing gently down until they seem to snap in. Then tighten. Replace the feet. You're done with the hardware side of the equation.
