iPod Touch Mods

This is the 2nd part of the Do-It-Yourself tutorial on building the external Mic for the iPod Touch.

Last time we finished the circuitry, and now as you check the Mic and see the one millimeter distance between its legs, you are saying: "noooo- waaaaay, I am rather adding a 3.5mm plug for (external mics and a headset)?"

Yess, ok, just check the photo below. What do you think the weight ratio between the Mic preamp and that big external cable is?


Roughly 1:10? And how heavy it is going to be when you plug in your headset plug? Not to mention when you start to pull that 0.5kg cable? You do not wanna destroy the Dock Plug of your brand new Touch, do you?! So, now that you know there is (almost) no other way but to add that beautiful tiny mic you anyway ordered, let's do it then!

12. Let's start by approving the fitting of the construction you made up to now. Try fitting it into the metal housing of the dock connector. (the image was made before the capacitor was added as we check it several times during the construction).




13. Fits? Well done. We are going first to connect the 3rd leg of the IC to that 15k resistor on the bottom. Then the next step is to connect the 6k8 resistor to the end of the capacitor (yellow on the image). And finally to connect the GND of the IC (leg 4) to the GND of the Dock (PIN 30 or 29).





14. Trick nr1 today: we are reusing one pin of the Dock Connector you removed as the future Gnd line of the Mic. Pls note the pin is shaped into an L-shape that exactly reaches the GND of the mic, but also does reach out behind the edge of the mic cylinder around 0.5 mm. This will not let the Mic fall out, even in hot situations. Add also a 10 mm wire to the "line-out" pin of the mic.



15. So Let's add the Mic! Connect the black wire of the mic to the Cap where it meets the 6k8 (4k7 or a little lower value) resistor.


16. Since the whole construction is going to be placed into a metal housing that is directly connected to the ground (remember), we need to protect the parts we connected up to now by plastic self-adhesive folia strips (from your paper-shops).


17. Ready? Close the whole metal housing, by keeping the mic wire between the bottom metal part (the bigger one) and the folia strips covering pin 4 of the IC. The mic should reach out just so-so!!!



18. Add the bottom plastic cover (there is a label inside saying "Bottom"), and the two plastic buttons as depicted on the image. Left and Right are the same.

19. Push the Mic GENTLY into his final position by keeping it away from the folia-covered IC legs. Now fix the mic GND leg with another folia strip. Good! We are close :)



20. Close the plastic box first without a glue, then glue the four corners and the edges next to the mic, and push it together. Here we go. After the glue part is done, check if the plastic buttons still work. If not, push them gently until the glue release them.

21. Plug in your mic, load VNotes that was sitting on your Touch since the first day you got it, and enjoy its Voice functions!!!



Ok, now, please, Donate a little, if you liked this tutorial, or you are thinking about supporting our Project. You may click on the "Donate" link at touchmods.net. Thnx.

Cheers, Marian