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The i.Trek Powered Cradle Mount with Powered Speaker

I recently purchased the i.Trek Powered Cradle Mount with Powered Speaker from Semsons (http://www.semsons.com/ipocrmowiins18.html). It arrived today and I wanted to jot down my first impressions. By the way, My Sprint Mogul is running the leaked 3.16 ROM and radio. So, I use the internal GPS for navigation. I bought the cradle/mount so that I could use my Mogul like a TomTom / Garmin / etc.
I purchased the cradle with the standard mounting kit and the RJ-11 to 4mm DC cable. It also came with a car adapter. The standard mounting kit includes 1 windshield mount (suction cup and flexible arm), 1 adhesive disc, and 1 vent clip adapter.
The windshield mounting arm seems very stiff and stable. I could not get the suction cup to disconnect from the window without flipping the release switch. I have not tried the vent clip, but it seems like it would attach to most vent configurations as the clips can attach to vertical or horizontal vents.
I was disappointed to see that the car adapter is not a mini-usb connection. You have to plug the car adapter into the cradle and dock the Mogul in the cradle to charge it. On that note, there is a switch on the side of the cradle that turns the charger on and off so that if the Mogul is fully charged, you can still use the speaker without sending power to the mogul's charging port.
The speaker on the cradle seems plenty loud. Unfortunately, there isn't a hardware volume adjustment for the built-in speaker. If you are driving a loud vehicle, you may have a little trouble hearing the speaker, but in my Buick sedan, I had no problems.
The dock has an RJ-11 port that you can use the included cable with to charge a GPS adapter. It also has an audio-in connection, however, the cradle does not come with a cable or microphone for audio-in. I believe this is a serious omission on i.Trek's part.
When docked, my Mogul played all of its audio through the cradle's speaker. As I said before, the volume was very adequate. However, I could not give any voice commands to MS Voice Command and callers could not hear me. I turned on Bluetooth and used my Jaw Bone headset and got the same results. Audio would come through the headset momentarily, switch back to the speaker on the cradle, and the caller could not hear me.
For some reason, plugging the Mogul into the cradle disables all microphones. I can only assume this is because the phone expects something to be plugged into the audio-in port on the cradle. This may become a serious problem for me as I take a lot of calls from the car. I have to undock the phone from the cradle to make or take a phone call. This is annoying, to say the least.
If anyone knows of a registry hack that will play audio through the speaker, but keep my Bluetooth headset active, please post it here or PM me. I would be very grateful.
I have taken some pictures of the dock and will post them soon. I hope this helps you make a decision about your purchase.

Sorry about the poor quality pics. I took them with my phone (kind of ironic, eh?).

so it does have an audio out and audio in. hmmm. i think you can get the clip on mic from seido for about 12 bucks. i may have to order this and an adaptor (stupid aftermarket proprietary plug required) for my radio and give it a shot.
all in all an external mic may be easier than using bluetooth and cause less of a problem <shrug>.
good luck and thanks for the pics.

Is that RJ11 to dc to power the cradle from a phone jack so you could use it as a charger in say a hotel room?

mogul67 said:
Is that RJ11 to dc to power the cradle from a phone jack so you could use it as a charger in say a hotel room?
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Click to collapse
No, they use the RJ-11 cable to charge a stand-alone GPS receiver. It has nothing to do with a land-line telephone.

This thing is a piece of crap.
It takes two hands to get the phone in or out. The sound from the audio output is horrible.
Save your money.

rangie said:
This thing is a piece of crap.
It takes two hands to get the phone in or out. The sound from the audio output is horrible.
Save your money.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Getting the phone into the cradle is definitely a pain in the neck. If you don't get it lined up just right, it won't dock. You would think they could have fit it to the phone a little better.

Audio & Power in car: Electrical Noise

I've got a problem when I plug my phone into my car stereo as well as cigarette adapter.
I'm also got a kind of custom setup.
Audio
Honda Civic Stock Stereo -> CD Changer to Aux Input Adapter -> 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter -> 2.5mm input on HTC Y adapter.
Power
Belkin Cig. Lighter to USB Female Port (From old iPaq) -> HTC Stock Sync/Charge USB cable -> MiniUSB input on HTC Y adapter.
So, when both the power and audio are plugged in, I hear a horrible hiss on my car stereo, not to mention a sound that varies in pitch to my throttle. When I unplug the power, the audio is completely clean. To me this seems like some kind of a grounding issue - to say that the Audio and Power both have seperate grounds, and bridging the two creates a potential difference in the form of noise on my Sound. Also to note: I only hear the noise when the Y adapter is plugged into the phone. With the audio and power plugged into the Y adapter, but the Y adapter not plugged into the phone, It's perfectly clean. I'm kind of baffeled.
The only solution I can think of is to gut the Belkin Power->USB adapter, and providing it from 12VDC elsewhere. I've got a tap directly below my passenger seat where I have a big power inverter tied to my battery. I don't know if I'd hear the same sound by grabbing my power from there.
Anyone with an engineering mindset have an idea? I'm open to suggestions.

If it was a grounding issue I would expect a buzz not a hiss...
Does it go away when you unplug the power and just leave the audio?
Go away or stay when the phone is unplugged?
It could be a bad adapter so maybe try another...

It goes away when I unplug the power, or unplug the phone. It's only present with audio+power both plugged into the phone.
I've tried powering it using the AC adapter and a power inverter - that sounds clean.

Fix?
I have the same problem and went out and bought a ground loop isolator from Radio Shack. It ran about 12.00 and it definitely got rid of the noise but unfortunately it noticeably affected the sound quality of my music and made it sound high pitched.
Perhaps buying a higher quality one will solve the problem. In the meantime, I've returned the isolator and just run on battery when listening to music. Perhaps I'll hit Ebay and see if there's a higher quality ground loop isolator.

Definitely a ground loop problem.
As devoe said, you can get a ground isolator and put in the audio line, but those are typically a simple transformer, and they often don't pass low frequencies very well.
You may be able to simply cut the ground going to the audio jack input. Not a perfect solution, but it sometimes works. But it usually requires a blocking cap in each channel. An experiment for sure.
A different power adapter might help. Or not.
You may also be able to add in a power plug that is wired directly to the radios ground and power. Then your power adapter plugged into that might have a ground that is close enough to the radio ground to not have a problem.
Me, I would open up the power adapter, and if it is a switcher supply with a transformer, see if I could isolate the ground.

I had the exact same issue. I believe it is called alternator noise.
01 Nissan Maxima with Eclipse AVN 5435 RCA hook up. When cigarette lighter and audio are both on, it makes the noise. I dont think it happened in the beginning but definitely happens now....
Luckily my Kicker 12L7 overwhelms the noise and allows me to tolerate it...somewhat.

When the audio wire and power wire are close to each other, this problem happens. Intead of using an isolator for audio wire reducing quality, try shielding your power wire instead. Might work but not very sure..

worwig said:
Definitely a ground loop problem.
As devoe said, you can get a ground isolator and put in the audio line, but those are typically a simple transformer, and they often don't pass low frequencies very well.
You may be able to simply cut the ground going to the audio jack input. Not a perfect solution, but it sometimes works. But it usually requires a blocking cap in each channel. An experiment for sure.
A different power adapter might help. Or not.
You may also be able to add in a power plug that is wired directly to the radios ground and power. Then your power adapter plugged into that might have a ground that is close enough to the radio ground to not have a problem.
Me, I would open up the power adapter, and if it is a switcher supply with a transformer, see if I could isolate the ground.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What he said. The fact it alters in pitch with engine speed says it's alternator wine, which is related to grounding issues. I have a similar problem, but it's not a wine that follows RPMs, just a static like hiss. I need to dink around with the ground and see if I can get it.

I had a similar problem. I hadn't used my car audio for a while and when I started it up again, it was making horrible noises. I bought a new charger and had significant improvements. I'd recommend buying a charger from radio shack. If that doesn't fix it (or if you find it cheaper online), then you can return it.

If you can, verify the grounding cable on your cigarette lighter. Best thing you could do it to cut it and look for the nearest solid metal ground point in the lighter's general vicinity and ground it to that. Could be the stock ground on the plug.
I'm a car audio buff and my previous car, a 01' Camry had that issue when I charged my Creative Zen touch and played audio through it as well... Fixed it by re-grounding my lighter plug directly to the chassy, its just a matter of finding the right spot nearby to ground it with a good sized gauge wire, like 12 or 14 AWG.

I had a similar problem. I discovered that my problem was that the Mogul's CPU noise was conducting out the USB DC power cable and then coupling back through to my FM transmitter on it's DC power cable. I never was able to completely get ride of the noise. However, I was able to reduce it substantially by using a different USB 12VDC power source. USB hubs normally contain low pass filters on the USB power lines, so your mileage may vary.
The tick to solving your problem is to try different configurations by moving and disconnect wires. Often you can here noise variations that will indicate whether the noise is external to your system.
EMI is either conducted (ground loops) or radiated. Since audio is below 1MHz it is best if there is only a single ground point. Since you normally have multiple wires, ground loops are common, so keep your wires short and your devices close together.

Same trouble here, but on a Touch Pro...

Trouble Charging with Docking station

I purchased one of those docking stations with additional battery charger off ebay. However, for some reason the unit isn't charging the device when it's docked. Instead it loses power. I waited almost 2 months for them to finally ship the item now this. I was thinking it may be the 1.5ma adapter that came with it. My test this evening will be to plug up the regular charger in the mini usb port and see if that will charge the unit. Is anyone else having this problem? I was trying to cut expense by purchasing this unit instead of the more expensive ones sold on expansys for a little over $100 usd. I even went as far as implementing a 3.5 mm plug for audio (stereo) and this took quite a few hrs to do. Please give some feedback.

I have the same docking station you have. It charges my phone if I turn the backlight down, and dont run any data programs (gps, wifi or anything like that) If I run much of anything it will drain down. I attributed it to the charger cable that comes with it. Let us know how your tests go. I can voice for the xtra battery spot, it charges my spare in less than an hour from empty.

touchlasvegas said:
I have the same docking station you have. It charges my phone if I turn the backlight down, and dont run any data programs (gps, wifi or anything like that) If I run much of anything it will drain down. I attributed it to the charger cable that comes with it. Let us know how your tests go. I can voice for the xtra battery spot, it charges my spare in less than an hour from empty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply bud. I said I'll try the OEM charger in the mini port first, and if that works then I'll buy a higher milli amp charger for it (maybe 3 ma). I did a nice little audio mod to it as I discussed and I'll take pictures later when I get in. I really like the unit and the great thing about my audio mod is that it doesn't broadcast my calls over my A/V receiver, it goes directly to my BT headset (conversations stay private), and once I hang up the audio goes back to the A/V receiver, so I can continue listening to my music. The mod only cost me about $3 USD for the necessary parts and some soldering and drilling.

Here are the pics of the mod I did. The Audio works fantastic. I converted the 3.5mm plug to stereo output and well placed too as the device just slide right onto the docking station without any trouble. Now my next task is to find a 3 ma adapter to use as a charger. For some reason even when I use the OEM charger in the mini usb slot the device charges, but does it very slowly as if it was getting the charge from the computer's USB connection, and the 2nd battery slot doesn't charge at all with this method. If anyone would like internal pics (not that they would help much as I've soldered and hot glued all the wires in the device for stability) I will be more than happy to upload some.

charging with cradle
Had the same problem before so I just plug both chargers into the unit. (Athena and cradle adaptor) It now charges abeit slowly with wifi and screen at middle illumination but fast if I turn the screen off( 20% to 100% in 2.5 hrs.). avoid plugging anything else to the usb or any ports while charging. It will grain your battery even if you are not using them.
Can you take a picture of the internal part of the cradle? The part where you installed the audio jack and rca sockets. This is where I am having problems. I find the space too small to install those you installed. Maybe you could give me an idea how to install the same in my cradle.
Another thing, do you think it is possible to put in another USB slot and/or a memory card slot? I'm going to the province(the provincial life here is like 1980's there in the US except for mobile phones and a few computers with limited internet access) and I don't want to carry arround so many gadgets and attachments with me. I have 2 4G usb drives, 16G cf and a 2G mini sd. I keep my file both for business and pleasure outside of my athena for safety. As much as possible, I don't want to attach an external usb hub as it drains my battery. I would rather have an internal hub and changing the led to something smaller to consume less power but integrate them to the cradle.
As much as I want to bring my laptop to the province, the size of my ibm x40 is still to big and heavy for me to carry constantly everywhere.

yetdy said:
Had the same problem before so I just plug both chargers into the unit. (Athena and cradle adaptor) It now charges abeit slowly with wifi and screen at middle illumination but fast if I turn the screen off( 20% to 100% in 2.5 hrs.). avoid plugging anything else to the usb or any ports while charging. It will grain your battery even if you are not using them.
Can you take a picture of the internal part of the cradle? The part where you installed the audio jack and rca sockets. This is where I am having problems. I find the space too small to install those you installed. Maybe you could give me an idea how to install the same in my cradle.
Another thing, do you think it is possible to put in another USB slot and/or a memory card slot? I'm going to the province(the provincial life here is like 1980's there in the US except for mobile phones and a few computers with limited internet access) and I don't want to carry arround so many gadgets and attachments with me. I have 2 4G usb drives, 16G cf and a 2G mini sd. I keep my file both for business and pleasure outside of my athena for safety. As much as possible, I don't want to attach an external usb hub as it drains my battery. I would rather have an internal hub and changing the led to something smaller to consume less power but integrate them to the cradle.
As much as I want to bring my laptop to the province, the size of my ibm x40 is still to big and heavy for me to carry constantly everywhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will upload some pics in a bit. I thought about putting in a 2nd USB slot, however now that you've mentioned the internal USB hub, you gave me a new task for tomorrow. I will go to Rat shack and try to find the smallest hub they have and take it apart and somehow get that bad boy to fit into the cradle. If you've researched any that's pretty small post the link and I'll take a look at it. Give me about 30 mins to upload some pics as I have to take the unit apart and stuff. Oh btw I had to strip the 3.5mm down to the bare metal from a cheap headset I had laying around.

The yellow plastic piece is where the stereo adapter is located. I had to shave down a piece of plastic on the insde that was kinda blocking the space. I also made sure that the unit was able to close properly. As you can see in the pictures there's no other wires for the unit to short out on and everything's secured properly with the hot glue, and some soldering.

Is the audio not availble via the usb plug? I was led to belive the usb to 3.5mm headphone adaptors work with the ameo? If this is correct and all the pins have connectors then the audio should be availble without adding a 3rd plug.
The genuine htc cradle does have audio out but looks like it only has 2 plugs so it must be possible?
I have just got a 2nd dock station from ebay to try and make my own 4 in 1 plug for charging, tv out, and hdd connection for the car. Does any one have the mini usb headphone adaptor and the ability to test for continuity between the headphone socket and the usb plug?
regards

delboydell said:
Is the audio not availble via the usb plug? I was led to belive the usb to 3.5mm headphone adaptors work with the ameo? If this is correct and all the pins have connectors then the audio should be availble without adding a 3rd plug.
The genuine htc cradle does have audio out but looks like it only has 2 plugs so it must be possible?
I have just got a 2nd dock station from ebay to try and make my own 4 in 1 plug for charging, tv out, and hdd connection for the car. Does any one have the mini usb headphone adaptor and the ability to test for continuity between the headphone socket and the usb plug?
regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those 3 in 1 adapters do work, however I did the mod to eleminate the need to carry around any extra hardware. I used the 3 in 1 adapter in the usb slot from T-mobile wing phone and it worked just fine. It has the 3.5mm slot, and 2 mini usb slots. But again I did it this way to eleminate the need for that. I'm currently in the process of finding a small USB hub that I can strip down from it's housing and fit it inside the docking station. I already located a 3ma adapter with variable voltage settings. This should be good enough to run all the components and charge the batteries at the same time. Let me know how your mod goes or if you need some ideas.

I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.

tootallk2000 said:
I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.

yetdy said:
Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got in late yesterday, and wasn't able to check the size against the cradle. I see you have slots for a flash card reader on yours, the question now is, have you found a spot to fit all that in there? The size of the one I saw looks like it would work, but it doesn't have the card readers in it. I think that would be very ideal to have in there too. Let me see pics of the final product, if you can get it to fit, if you can't no biggy i'll just do without the card reader in it.

tootallk2000 said:
I was considering this: http://www.upgradenation.com/Tripp_Lite_The_ultra_small_4-port/U222-004-R/partinfo-id-551698.html USB hub to implement into the docking station. Let me know what you guys think, I will check the size when I get home to see if it will fit. I drew it to scale on a piece of paper just to make sure before I order it. Now keep in mind that I will be taking it out it's housing to get it to fit inside the unit, hence eleminating the extra load. Oh btw problem solved with the charging. Feedbacks please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What was the solution for charging? Have you talked with the folks at gpsforless or HTC to see if they could fix there design, by using the designs that you have developed so far? Or are you interested in making a couple extra docking stations for a fee? Sometimes we have more time than money and other times we are starved for time... Lately, I have been starved of time...
Thanks for taking the time to develop a solution that I have been dreaming about, while on the road traveling, ect...
Part of the work around that I was using was BT audio recievers, they have been a great work around, but also have some limitations as well...
I look forward to hearing and seeing good things from you in the future
v/r
Bob

yetdy said:
Got a USB hub that may work. It's a hybrid. I also attached pics of how I modified my cradle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you gotten any of the hubs to allow for you to power and recharge the device or spare battery via USB?

the usb hub works but it literally drains my battery so much that i prefer not to use it anymore.

Neat charger for Athena & Jabra headsets

http://www.expansys-usa.com/d.aspx?i=148251
Charges both at same time.

Sweet. I may get one of these.

Do you know how much amps it's delivering? The Athena needs at least 2A to show any sign of being charged!!! I'm suspecting it's only delivering 500mA which is the max amount of amps a Jabra headset can take without frying itself. 500mA is just enough to light up the amber charging light on the Athena and nothing else.

sumtingwong said:
Do you know how much amps it's delivering? The Athena needs at least 2A to show any sign of being charged!!! I'm suspecting it's only delivering 500mA which is the max amount of amps a Jabra headset can take without frying itself. 500mA is just enough to light up the amber charging light on the Athena and nothing else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always thought that a regular HTC charger provided 1A. Do you use a 2A charger?
According to Expansys and PP Techs this should at least give more than 500mA:
The majority of new devices are equipped with two different charging modes: a sync-n-charge mode through a computer USB port (slow charge) and a regular charge mode through an AC/DC adapter or any other charging accessory (fast charge). Those two charge settings require two completely different pinouts and are not compatible with each other.
In select devices, this incompatibility would mean that a sync-and-charge cable for your device, when connected to an AC/DC adapter or similarcharging accessories, will not be properly configured to charge your device.
Our new Lil Sync® Duo Adapter is the convenient solution to this common charging problem. Using our adapter will forces your Sprint PPC-6700 to use the most effective, “fast-charge” mode when plugged into AC/DC power. Additionally, there is a Jabra 8 pin companion port tailed onto the adapter. This allows you to conveniently charge a second accessory such as a Jabra headset simultaneously.
In some cases, your Sprint PPC-6700 will not charge from an AC/DC adapter or other charging accessory when the battery life is below 30 percent. Our Lil Sync® Duo Adapter will charge your Sprint PPC-6700 from a completely drained battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like an interesting little accessory.

Yes. I am using a 2A charger both at home and in my car. The one I'm using is the TomTom USB Charger for Go/One/OneXL/XL. Attached are the pictures of the car charger. The home charger provides the same amp. If you're in the US, the car charger is sold at Target for $19.99. The car charger is bent at an angle but the home charger is not. If your car doesn't have bluetooth and you have to use the audio jack on your athena, then you'll need a mini USB angle adapter to reposition the cable upward. The mini USB angle adapter comes standard with the old Motorola Razr V3 so if you already have one of those phones, you don't have to buy a new adapter. Otherwise, the Motorola mini USB angle adapter is sold for a few bucks where Motorola phones are sold.

[Q] HD7 won't charge from car stereo USB

I just purchased a new car stereo (JVC kd-r730bt). I knew it wouldn't be able to access my HD7's media through the USB, but the salesperson told me that I should still be able to charge through it. (The booklet specifically mentions the usb provides 5V 1a for charging.) But it won't charge when I plug it in. The port itself seems to be working because it will charge my ipod and the HD7 must be getting some juice because it will turn on if it's off when I plug it in, but I don't get the charge indicator and my battery level never goes up.
I thought it might just be my unit or a problem with the install, but I had the same problem when I went and tried it on the display unit in the store. The sales guy was at a loss. The only thing we could think of was maybe the unit doesn't have the right volts or amps for the phone? However another sales guy told me that most chargers are 1a and that shouldn't be a problem. And I called JVC and HTC customer service and neither of them thought that would be the problem either. Does anyone know what the issue might be and if there's any fix/work around for it?
By the way, I was able to charge the phone using the same USB cable with a different car stereo display unit (Pioneer deh-6400bt). I also charge just fine off a computer usb using that cable.
On the bright side, the JVC streams music beautifully from my HD7 over bluetooth. I'm glad I got it over the Pioneer even with the charging issue since the Pioneer only does phone calls over bluetooth not media.

HD7 won't charge from car stereo USB...
...no it won't...it's not a ipod (thanks god)! buy a bluetooth car stereo...

Maybe u got some cigarette ash in ur car lighter pot , my car got that problem .
I fixed it by clean it ....

to saKerXing
maybe he got flat battery, my car got this problem ,
i fixed it by getting new battery
cheers and have a gr8 day
thanks button is next to qoute button
p.s love ur posts