What with Apple being a caring sharing company, and not a bunch of proprietary standard changing b@st@rds, I’m struggling to find the right connector that will work with the stuff I’ve got.

I’m after a bluetooth adaptor for an oldish iPod dock. The dock is about seven years old and used to work with (and charge) my old iPod. I’ve no idea what ‘generation’ the iPod was, but it was 30gb and did video, I know that.

I’ve tried a bluetooth adaptor before, but because (I assume) Apple have at some point changed which pin within the connector provides the power, it didn’t work.

So, what do I need to look out for in a bluetooth adaptor to make sure it will work on my (oldish) dock?

I picked up a 20-pin BT adapter from Tesco of some such for a few quid, works fine. It’s not going to charge anything other than powering the dongle though, of course.

Yeah, I think the problem I had with the one I tried was that the ‘power’ pin has moved on later iPods/docks, so the BT adaptor was not being powered by the dock. So (I think) I need a BT adaptor that works on an older dock.

IHN – Member
What with Apple being a caring sharing company, and not a bunch of proprietary standard changing b@st@rds, I’m struggling to find the right connector that will work with the stuff I’ve got.

Just think yourself lucky you’ve never bought Sony kit then. Not only was practically everything they produced proprietary, including connectors and memory cards, they’d quite happily change the design of the actual phone end connection every year. I had two Sony phones, the connectors were really flimsy, shonky bloody things that you had to wiggle around carefully to get a connection, then not touch it under any circumstances or the connection would be lost, and they changed the design and made it worse on the next model. Incompetent muppets.
Don’t forget, the 30-pin connector was in use for nine years, a lifetime in electronics terms, if only Sony had as much of a clue.

Don’t forget, the 30-pin connector was in use for nine years, a lifetime in electronics terms

It was in use, but not unchanged, hence my difficulty.

30-pin, mia culpa.

I’m sure CZ will know better than I, but I’m not aware of Apple ever ‘changing pins,’ that’s just weird. More likely it was a cheap-ass adapter that wasn’t fit for purpose.

More likely it was a cheap-ass adapter

It wasn’t.

Early docks used the firewire power for charging at 12v.

Later ones used the USB 5v supply.

you can get a convertor.

I have one, trying to remember where I got it from 🙂

edit

one of these

Perfick, thanks