The Apple diyMod: My Take on the Famous iMod [56k killer] Featuring 3G, 4G, 5G and nano 1G!

[no_eye_dear]

Hi Guy's need some input if you could chaps
I have a 5.5G logicboard that was behaving a bit wierd and on closer inspection the last three pins on the dock have been mashed.
They are the Firewire grounds and data pins....
The USB connection doesn't seem to work properly so I'm wondering if the FW pins are needed in some way even though the 5.5's dont use FW?
I could get it working by replacing the pins... fiddly but doable
But I'm not going to bother if the pins are truly unnecessary.
Any thoughts guys?

[gueri_fr]

Personally, I use a standard soldering station bought in my usual electronic reseller. Searching on the web, it's a china model Zhongdi Manufacture Co.,Ltd.. But it's good for me, I used it from time to time. The Hakko 936 looks very nice

Originally Posted by no_eye_dear

The USB connection doesn't seem to work properly so I'm wondering if the FW pins are needed in some way even though the 5.5's dont use FW?

Hi no_eye_dear,
I think the 5.5G can only use the firewire pins to charge the battery.

gueri_fr

[pkjames]

Originally Posted by patton713MW

Researching the Hakko 936... quite tempting...

edit - Out of these tips (medium size), which two additional tips would you recommend to cover everywhere from regular work to very fine work? Remember that it comes with the 900M-T-1.6D tip already.

I personally own a Hakko 936, best investment ever

[patton713MW]

Originally Posted by no_eye_dear

I could get it working by replacing the pins... fiddly but doable
But I'm not going to bother if the pins are truly unnecessary.
Any thoughts guys?

This is from the iPod wiki entry on wikipedia:

As of the first generation iPod nano and the fifth generation iPod classic, Apple discontinued using FireWire for data transfer and made a full transition to USB 2.0 in an attempt to reduce cost and form factor. With these changes, FireWire could only be used for recharging.

Sounds like you don't need them. Good luck getting it to work again!

[tigerkai]

Hi guys after reading the review of 21 different types of capacitors.i'm interested to diy a dock for my RWA 5.5 Gen iMod using Audio Note/silver or TFTF Vcap.i had actually diy a mundorf silver/oil 4.7uf cap dock before and really enjoyed it very much. Anyone advise me which value to use as i'm a technical idiot! Will 0.1uf be similar sounding towards my present Mcap 4.7uf?

[joneeboi]

Will 0.1uf be similar sounding towards my present Mcap 4.7uf?

Before I give you the values you want, I'll offer two contextual responses. First, you ought to always listen for yourself what value you want in your diyMod. That's the final test and greatest advantage of DIY; people can say what they want about brands, values, bypassing, whatever, but only you hear what you hear. Second and less interestingly, it depends on what is being paired with what. If it's an amp, if it's a set of headphones, this choice has an adverse effect on the size of your capacitor (say, 4.7uF vs. 470uF). If it's a 3G with such and such an amp, if it's a nano 1G with this or that brand of cap, things change. Ultimately, there's no guarantee that what anyone says here will be your experience, so you're going to have to find out for yourself. What everyone here likes may not be what you like. That having been said, people have used values from 0.1uF to 47uF for headphone amps. I have stated over and again that I love the BG NX Hi-Q 47uF 6.3V capacitor for my diyMod 4G and PIMETA with AD8620/AD8610 set at gain ~4 on my rescreened Grado SR60s with glue-modded Jumbo pads, Canare Starquad recable, and Dynamat driver mod with files encoded as 320kbps MP3 played through the original Apple firmware. You need to have a holistic view of your music, and again, what works for your ear may not work with mine.

Short answer is "maybe."

[tigerkai]

Originally Posted by joneeboi

Before I give you the values you want, I'll offer two contextual responses. First, you ought to always listen for yourself what value you want in your diyMod. That's the final test and greatest advantage of DIY; people can say what they want about brands, values, bypassing, whatever, but only you hear what you hear. Second and less interestingly, it depends on what is being paired with what. If it's an amp, if it's a set of headphones, this choice has an adverse effect on the size of your capacitor (say, 4.7uF vs. 470uF). If it's a 3G with such and such an amp, if it's a nano 1G with this or that brand of cap, things change. Ultimately, there's no guarantee that what anyone says here will be your experience, so you're going to have to find out for yourself. What everyone here likes may not be what you like. That having been said, people have used values from 0.1uF to 47uF for headphone amps. I have stated over and again that I love the BG NX Hi-Q 47uF 6.3V capacitor for my diyMod 4G and PIMETA with AD8620/AD8610 set at gain ~4 on my rescreened Grado SR60s with glue-modded Jumbo pads, Canare Starquad recable, and Dynamat driver mod with files encoded as 320kbps MP3 played through the original Apple firmware. You need to have a holistic view of your music, and again, what works for your ear may not work with mine.

Short answer is "maybe."

Thks for your info and explanation!so it all trial and error.btw how or what do the different values affect the sound?

[darkfury18]

How much worse is the headphone out compared to line out on the Wolfson's chips?

I want to use the ipod to control the volume and not bother with adjusting the volume on the amp, but how much SQ will I be sacrificing if I do that?

[joneeboi]

The only difference is a digital volume control, but I don't know if you'll be able to tell the sound difference between the two. See the datasheet block diagram (page 1) for more details.

[darkfury18]

I have a 3G so it's the 8731, it seems like the HP out is an additional stage after the line out. It seems like it doesn't make that big of a difference on the 8971 since it's the same output, but what about the 8731?

Line out


HP out