[Freeflyer]

Hi all,

I have a spare apple thin firewire cable from the ipod, that I'm using to make an external battery pack for it. I need to connect the power wires to the battery pack and just wanted to check the polarity.

From what I've read, the unshielded black and white wires are for the power. I believe that white is the positive lead, but wanted to check before I make the final connections.

Thanks,

J.

[GORDYmac]

http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub...conn.html#1394

[Freeflyer]

Thanks Gordy,

I had found that, together with the following on apple's site.

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/...Connector.html

I wanted to check the pinouts on the male plug, which is on either end of the ipod firewire cable, and found this on another site.

http://www.networktechinc.com/technote.html

the firewire male plug is at the bottom of the page.

Looking at them, I see that they both have the same pinout, which means that if you plug them together, pin 1 on the plug goes to pin 2 on the socket.

This means that I could seriously get the polarity wrong, and potentially fry the ipod, which would be a very bad thing.

Can anyone suggest the correct wiring config.

Thanks,

J.

[Freeflyer]

So there I was thinking there must be a better way to figure this out. Instead of spending hours searching the net and asking questions, why didn't I just plug the power adaptor in, and put a meter across the plug.

Did this ( you need a couple of very thin pieces of wire and a steady hand (preferably 3). Checked it out and proved that the apple diagram is correct and the one of the male plug is not.

The upshot of it is, that the white lead in an apple firewire cable is the positive and the black is the negative.

Wired it to my 8AA battery pack, plugged in and the charging symbol started it's merry little dance. I can now take my ipod on my month long trek in the himalayas and charge it off a pack of AA's.

Cheers,

J.

[VerdeSpider]

Does anyone know if you can control the 3rd generation iPods from the bottom connector? I would like to design a connector where you just plug it into the bottom, and be able to charge / play-pause / advance tracks and get line-out.

I am not sure it is even possible - but can't find anything about what that port is capable of.

Thanks

[tooki]

Of course it's possible, that's how the Dension IceLink and the BMW-Apple iPod interface control the iPods. They use the dock connector for everything -- power, audio, and remote control.

tooki