Griffin Auto Pilot (Amazon $19.99!) - Page 3

psylichon · 03-07-2009, 04:44 PM

I swear my Edge reception is stronger plugged into this charger. I wonder if the antenna somehow taps into the electrical wiring of your car somehow? All I know is I can stream Pandora with no problem through a known deadzone crossing the river near my house. And song are loading much faster. Maybe AT&T's just beefed up service in my area since I last used Pandora on the go.

Hawk · 03-07-2009, 05:06 PM

Yeah, now that you mention it, I haven't heard any "GSM" noise at all. Cool.
Just have to say that despite the accessories error message, the auto pilot is the bomb diggity. Especially for 25 shipped.

Napoleon_PhoneApart · 03-09-2009, 06:58 PM

Well, I ordered one through Amazon as well. You guys really seem to be enamored with it, so it sounds good.

But if I don't like it...

Luuuuucy! You got some 'splainin' to do!

chris · 03-09-2009, 07:04 PM

Here's Hawk's blog post, although this thread does have some updates to his quest.

I think I'll include a link from his post to this discussions? Sound like a good idea?

Hawk · 03-09-2009, 11:49 PM

It is complete. Chris I even have an 8 minute vid out there as well. I've posted it in a few threads, but apparently no one wants to watch it. LOL
I also have a number of pictures too.
Here's what I did for the setup:
The Dice dock comes with adapters for the nano, mini, video ipod, 3g/4g (not sure exactly which versions these are but I would guess 3rd and 4th generation iPod) and the V1 iPhone. Yeah, they are slightly behind in the phone department, but it seems most companies are, and by the time they have something for the 3G, the next version will have probably been out for months.
As stated in my blog, I want a dock that will accomidate my iPhone 3g WITH the slider case (from Incase). I just want to get in my car, dock and press play and have my phone charging and playing through the stereo.
The Dice video dock was the closest thing to what I was looking for. the dock itself is nothing more than a pass-through, so using it with my Auto Pilot was perfect.
To get my phone to fit I had to first figure out which adapter would be the best fit for the slider case. I chose the video dock. It was the right depth, but not the right width.
After looking at how the adapters connected to the dock, I decided to cut along the manufacturing seams I could see in the plastic, but not cut all the way down, or I would ruin how the new "center" piece would stay in place. In essence, when I finished cutting, the center resembled an upsidedown capital "T". I then found 4 screws that had very shallow heads and with 3 drill bits, made the holes, widned the top holes so I wouldn't have to screw through the first piece, and also used a bit that was slightly larger than the screw head to make sure that the screws sat below the surface and not scratch my case. Lots of measuring and going slow. I paid 56 for this dock and didn't want to screw it up in one shot.
After I "expanded" the holder, I found that the back center piece was a hair thicker than needed. Because the phone and case backs are rounded, I needed to take a little off the middle piece. I sanded it down and the case slid right in and docked.
Unfortunately, the other thing that I didn't immediately account for was that with the case, the phone would dock too shallow to make a connection. So I examined the case and realized that the case was a little thicker on either side of the port opening. I used a small sanding drum on my dremel to correct that problem by making a concave spot on wither side of the connector on the dock. Test- works great. The phone has to lean slightly forward when putting it into the dock, but this is actually a natural motion for me and works perfectly.
So now I had to mount it. I salvaged some sheet metal from an old compter case and made a plate to mount to that had an edge that fit next to the center air vent unit. it's strong enough not to move unless I slam my phone in,which I don't do.
I buried my wires behind the center dash faceplate and I now have a very clean looking setup.
And as of tonight, I have installed a AUX out instead of using the tape adapter. I'm not completely sold on it, as it has slightly decreased the volume and "depth" of the music. I'm going to run with it for the next couple days and see how it does. If it really bothers me, I'll go back to the tape adapter. As cheesy as it looked, it sounded wonderful.
I'll got take some pics of the whole completed work, and post them in a moment.