The idea was to have a more ergonomic experience while reading off the Nook by using a wire with two buttons on one end and some kind of plug at the other to connect it to the Nook. Since using the USB would mean battery drain and having to run/stop some applications (like the fantastic USB mode by Renate), I tried connecting the hardware buttons directly. Thanks to dkuku and his dead motherboard I was able to do that. Here's how:
1. Locating the connection points. My Nook motherboard has a label layer with all the test points numbered. The interesting ones are:
T314 - common for all four hardware buttons on the sides
T309 - bottom left button
T310 - top right
T311 - top left
T312 - bottom right
I always hold the Nook in my left hand, so I remapped the right hand side buttons to Menu and Back. Therefore I decided to extend just the two left buttons.
2. The plug. I could not find a proper socket/plug pair small enough to fit into the Nook so I built my own. To avoid mechanical damages I decided to use small neodymium magnets as contacts. You can buy them online. I found some small ones - 2mm in diameter, 1mm thick. To make a plug and socket for two buttons we need 6 of them. To arrange them into identical patterns on the Nook face and in the plug itself I used 3 spent ballpoint cartridges that happened to be exactly 2mm wide inside so that the magnets would fit and the body of an automatic pencil that was just big enough to hold them together:
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The spaces between the cartridges were filled with epoxy. Then the sausage was cut into slices - about 2mm thick for the plug and 3mm for the socket. Then the magnets were pushed inside so that they would stick out a fraction of a milimeter.
Magnets cannot be soldered - they will lose their magnetic properties above certain temperature. Conductive glue must be used. I bought a small set for fixing rear window defrosters - a mixture of glue and silver filings. A drop into each tube holding a magnet will do. Then I covered the back of the socket/plug with epoxy to protect the more fragile conductive glue.
I decided to put the socket in the bottom right corner of the Nook frame - partly because I hold it with my left hand so that seemed natural, partly because it would fit in a small air pocket on the reverse side (I had to remove some of the little plastic reinforcing "walls") :
The extension buttons are prototypes - I'm still looking for some that would have the proper feel:
They fit quite nice, although the plug still needs some filing and painting:
The trick was not to put all magnets facing the same poles up so you can only fit the plug one way. Everything works smooth. The lazy reading is best, hands down
That's pretty nice.
My Nook Touch doesn't have any test points labelled.
Interesting perversion. =) I'd take the slimmer wires for internal mounting.
Related
This is my first post after lurking for a while, normally it would be a question, but instead I have decided to post a mini-review of the Boxwave docing station.
The Boxwave Wizard docking station is a good looking, well packaged unit. It includes a wall charger and has a built in USB cable. The unit it self comes in two pieces. The construction seems very good, with no gaps in the plastic seams. It is rather light and moves on the desk easily. It would have been nice if Boxware would have weighted the base more and/or included feet that were made of stickier rubber to prevent the movement.
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The two pieces are the base unit and a clear backrest that just snaps into place. When the unit is plugged into an active USB port or the included power adapter is plugged in, a blue LED inside the base shines up through the clear backrest. It is one of those unnecessary features that add a nice touch to the look of the unit.
Placing the Wizard in the cradle is a straightforward affair. Just angle the unit to match the backrest and slide it down over the USB plug that sticks out from the bottom of the cradle. To remove, I have found it a little easier to tilt the unit forward a few degrees and then pull up on the Wizard. When the Wizard is in the cradle it will sit back about 15 degrees allowing you to easily see the screen from your desk chair.
While you can slide the Wizard open sitting in the Boxwave cradle, you cannot really use it to type as there is no facility to turn the cradle on it's side. The steep angle also prevents comfortable use for prolonged periods of time.
The Wizard will charge with just the USB cable plugged in although it will be slower than when the power adapter is plugged into the cradle.
Overall, I would rate this cradle as 'must have' accessory for the Wizard for those that need access to both charging and syncing and access to the Wizard screen all at the same time, without taking up too much desk space.
There is now a USB cradle that keeps the unit open or closed at keyboard horizontally for around US$29.
See PocketSolutions.com. I have no commercial or other interest in this site.
Cy
I have both cradles, and for my Cingular 8125, the horizontal cradle was a bit scary to use--the rubber strip on the 8125's back was thick and grippy enough that the unit required an uncomfortable amount of force to seat in or remove from the cradle.
By way of contrast, I *love* the vertical Boxwave cradle. I've used it daily for over a month.
-Rich
Echoloc8 said:
I have both cradles, and for my Cingular 8125, the horizontal cradle was a bit scary to use--the rubber strip on the 8125's back was thick and grippy enough that the unit required an uncomfortable amount of force to seat in or remove from the cradle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you describe how the USB port gets connected on the horizontal cradle? I looked at the photos on the website and it doesn't show how how it clips in and I can't imagine how it's done.
pterrell said:
Echoloc8 said:
I have both cradles, and for my Cingular 8125, the horizontal cradle was a bit scary to use--the rubber strip on the 8125's back was thick and grippy enough that the unit required an uncomfortable amount of force to seat in or remove from the cradle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you describe how the USB port gets connected on the horizontal cradle? I looked at the photos on the website and it doesn't show how how it clips in and I can't imagine how it's done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The USB port is inside the right-hand side of the cradle. You have to slide in the 8125 from the left, and it DOES take some lining up of the port and clip to seat it correctly.
I've had this cradle for over 3 months. Other than having to take an extra couple of seconds to make sure the USB port is lined up to the clip, I have absolutely no issues at all with it. I don't even mind using the 8125 in the horizontal (landscape mode -- actually gives me "hands-free" access to the keyboard to enter data).
I keep my 8125 hooked into the cradle all night and "grab-'n-go" on my way to work in the morning. Does a GREAT job of charging!!
supplies : a phillips screwdriver, star screwdriver, snap-off blade cutter, sandpaper, guitar peak or your nail, scotch tape
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they are screwdrivers what I'm using ^_^
1.Loosen a screw.
phillipse 4
star 6
totally, we need to loosen 10 screws. ( I don't know why xperia s use two method lol)
2.Take off back cover.
open HDMI cap, and spread back cover with your nail or kinds of lever.
Then, spread othersides too.
warning!!!
Don't open cover too much.
A cable is connected at back cover and main body.
It is!
It's simply connected, so just lift little bit with guitar peak.
And then, separating finish!
3.Cutting back cover
modification changable battery is very very very simple
because,
1. seperate back cover, cut. finish
2.main body is safe and we will play with back cover that can play little roughly.
Let's cut~
first, remove insulating tape
if you think removing insulating tape is not good, you can cut little under of them
I think there is no problem.
You can do fast if you scrape edge of them with guitar peak or snap-off blade cutter
removing insulating tape finish!
now, cut red line.
I barely did with heating snap-off blade cutter with lighter + mother's help.
Wow! finish! let's use........OMG it gets stuck
because I just cut 1 line....
someone cut 2 line
but, I use sand paper.
I can see my effort that I did lol
Yeah, cutting is finish. now, assemble![beforehand, remove battery first]
(My picture is already assembled....)
assembling is
connecting cable of back cover,
inserting back cover to main body,
tighten screw.
4.Make that battery's seperation is easy.
If you see youtube that I link at down of this post, He make that battery's seperation is easy.
We can also make that!
Use our last supplies, scotch tape.
Get take pull it and attach each of two sides(level of difficulty : difficult lol)
Then you can get smooth-faced tape....board?(I can choose english word @[email protected];
Attach it at battery.
★☆★☆★☆★☆FINISH☆★☆★☆★☆★
My english is poor ~_~
NOW, there is no weakness of XPERIA S!!!!
I'm so happy~
I want you modify like that lol
It is so comfortable.
and modification back cover is not difficult.
so.........
goodbye.
OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!
reference video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGxWHzqPsQc&feature=related&hd=1
who helps me : poby
recommend link of battery :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/27096568412...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
## I'm sorry but I can't answer question ^^
Photograph by Kkobuk (Camera: NIKON COOLPIX P100)
kkobuk's blog http://88turtle.tistory.com/
but whats the point of doing this?
....
It is so that you can have a removable battery I think.
Sent from my LT22i using xda app-developers app
Hi, i'm running black-bean4 and cant get the sound through car dock. Tried the galaxy Audio redirector from play store which worked fine with ICS, but does not work with jelly bean. Please help!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
*Bump* JB dock audio
I have a similar issue, were you able to get yours working?
I have struggled with this on every ROM/Kernel I have run on my Vibrant. So much so that I feel like I'm the only one using it. I don't even care about GPS anymore since its so buggy. I recently moved from Fishmans BIONX v4 to paranoid android JB 2.54-360 (CM 10) on my Samsung Vibrant (t959). The stock semaphore kernel that came with that ROM didn't support dock audio. I loaded 3.0.55-semaphore_JB_2.6.5sv (thur dec 6 22:30:51 EET 2012, but this one doesn't seem to support it either. I even installed dock audio from xcaliburinhand to enable it, but no dice. I LOVE all the features I currently have in this ROM, just need to add dock audio and it would be perfect.
Anyone get this working on a JB rom?
Sent from my SGH-T959
I spent hours looking for a software solution to this problem. Eventually, I just gave up and did a hardware solution, which I am 'open-sourcing' for the benefit of the community It took me about thirty minutes.
Insert a razor blade in the long side of the back cover, and pry the back cover off:
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Work the back cover out, there are a bunch of those terrible plastic tab things:
You'll see five small screws in the back. Remove them. Grab a magnet off the refrigerator and stick the screws to it so they don't get lost.
Insert the razorblade at the top left corner, and work the front faceplate off. There are a bunch more of those plastic tab things along the bottom edge, it's the most challenging piece to remove:
If you break off the tabs on the bottom, don't sweat it. The screws will still hold everything together okay.
The USB connector is mounted on a plastic sled held on by two screws. Remove it, and pull it back and out of the way of where we'll be cutting.
(no picture of this step)
Cut away the top left corner of the dock, a square perhaps 5/16" on a side. If you want to prevent the plastic from getting marked up by errant saw cuts and the like, wrap the area around the cut in a few layers of masking tape, to give yourself a bit of warning before you start to cut into the dock. I didn't bother with that, you can see that the corner of the plastic got a bit marked up:
[Also, don't just grab your wood saw because it's nearby, use something more appropriate to the task like a dremel or hobby coping saw ]
Sand away the burrs and sharp edges. You can see that I didn't take my own advice about the refrigerator magnet, do as I say not as I do, I guess:
Reassemble. You still have all the parts, right?
The Result: You can now plug in the 1/8" jack directly to the phone, while still having the phone securely docked. Happily the phone and 1/8" audio connector tend to hide any damage you cause with the saw, so between that and the fact that it's all black plastic anyway, you wouldn't necessarily know a modification was made just by looking at it.
Additional remarks:
1. I brought this phone out of retirement in order to permanently put it on the dock and use it as a media player. If the phone is still your daily driver and you need to plug/unplug this getup several times a day, this probably isn't a good solution for you.
2. If you like to live dangerously, you can just cut away the corner without taking it apart and moving the electronics well out of the way. there's a screw that you would have to cut through before you cut into anything electronic, so there's a (very small) margin of error.
Hope it helps someone!
I know I'm not the first to do this, but I don't think anyone has done any kind of step-by-step.
First thing I did was turn the Nabi off to be sure I didn't hit any buttons while I was working.
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After I made sure the device was off
I flipped the device over, removed the protective bumper, and found a small screwdriver.
Remove the six screws holding the grid square panel in place.
Select a material to use for the replacement rear cover. I chose a white lid from a RubberMaid container.
I then traced the grid square panel on the lid with an Xacto knife.
I made my first attempt with a cutting wheel on a Dremel, but it melted the plastic and made the edges too rough.
For the rest of my cutouts I just used the Xacto knife, tracing the lines over and over until it cut through.
I then placed the square grid panel on top of the cutout, marked the holes with a fine tip Sharpie, drilled the holes out with a small drill bit, and rounded out one side of the holes with a round tipped bit on my Dremel.
I then screwed the new rear panels on and decorated them for the kids with some paint markers. (Orange and Black were the only colors I had...)
Other users have used this method in the past to attach velcro straps to the back of their Nabis to use for children in the car.
katinatez said:
After purchasing multiple car seat dvd players to entertain my children on long trips, but only last 3-6 months because of lousy materials. The last straw was the RCA DVD player from Target lasted 2 months; every bump and pothole the DVD would skip or jump or all together stop playing.
I decided to find a permanent fix since we are heading on a 5 hour trip. I then looked toward the Nabi and since I have two of them and two kids I tried a few attempts to mount the Nabi to the car seat but found a better solution that turned out to be free. And here are some pictures.
I took a DVD case and cut it to dimensions and drilled 6 holes to screw back in with two slots for velcro straps I removed from previous car seat dvd player. The pictures are self explanatory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Feel free to post your own rear panel mods in this thread!
New Rear Panel Mod!
Hey guys, was trying to think of something new/different to try with my Nabis last night while not working at work.... came up with this. I didn't pour my heart and soul in to it, it was more of a proof of concept.
I followed the same instructions for cutting out a new rear panel, but then cut out the middle (slightly less than half an inch inward on all sides).
Spray painted.
Cut a piece of plexiglass slightly larger than the hole in the new panel from an old plastic picture frame. (For this I found it was better to use the Dremel than a utility knife or Xacto knife. Using a knife caused the plastic to crack.)
Super glued the two together.
Printed a picture from the computer. (Dimensions for printed image were 5.25 side to side and 2.75 top to bottom, not that it matters how exact you are... the frame covers it up. )
Put back together. (Be careful not to scratch the plastic with your screwdriver)
TA-DA!!!
That's very creative. I like that. Now make the nabi look somewhat like a steering wheel and that would be cool for driving games.
New ideas!
Don't have the money to spend on random little things I'm just going to cut apart right now, although who doesn't love taking things apart?!
So I sketched these in paint really quick.
If anyone has any other ideas please share!
And if you like the ideas hit me with a thumbs up! :good:
Measure your phone's width and height (or look it up).
Assemble 1/4 inch hardwood sticks to match your phone's 2 dimensional size.
Buy a sheet of 1/8 inch polycarbonate scrap (Tap Plastics in US)
Cut the sheet into a fat cross shape.
Apply double-sided tape to the hardwood sticks and adhere it to the poly. Align the center of the cross towards the bottom of the phone.
Use a heat gun to soften the poly and pull it/push it around the sticks. Use as little heat and as much force as possible because bubbles form around 260C.
Cut the bottom and sides so that the poly curls slightly over the sticks.
Cut the top so that it's flush with the top of the sticks. This is the release latch.
Break the sticks out and remove remains of the tape.
Bend down the top piece of plastic and begin to slide your phone into the case.
Note where the phone touches the poly sides first. Grind/cut away the inside of those edges to make insertion easier.
Grind/sand the center of the poly top side so that it doesn't catch on the cameras when the phone is inserted.
Scrub the holder thoroughly under water with a brush to remove any grit.
Insert the phone and note any adjustments needed. Mark on the poly where the USB and speaker ports are.
Remove the phone and finish all grinding/cutting to improve the shape.
If needed, adjust sides with a heat gun to be looser or tighter
Cut a hole in the bottom poly side for the USB port.
Drill a small hole in the bottom poly side for the speaker port.
Use a special epoxy for plastic to bond the holder to a bicycle clamp.
Scrub the holder thoroughly under water with a brush to remove any grit.
Add thin adhesive felt along the back to reduce vibration.
That's it. Done in a day.
Upload some pictures!
wormeyman said:
Upload some pictures!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a test build:
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The side plastic grips are touching the front glass and I'm worried about dirt causing scratches there. I think I'll try again and take photos of the progress. One mistake I made on the first try was starting with too small a piece of plastic that was difficult to work with. It takes a lot of force to bend the plastic without heating it to the point where it bubbles, and I didn't have enough to grab hold of.
I used to make these by encasing my phone in plastic bags and soft copper sheet metal, wrapping it with fiberglass, vacuum sealing, then carefully cutting the phone out. It makes for a beautiful fit that weighs almost nothing. On the down side, fiberglass and epoxy are messy as hell and I was terrified of destroying my phone. Bending polycarbonate over sticks is a lot less stressful.