Determining the plug and jack connections. After you
unscrew the covers on the plug and the jack, you’ll see 4
connectors on each of them. Fig. A: The jack has 3 short
rectangles and one large inverted T shaped connector.
Fig. B: The plug also has 4 connectors. Note that the
audio channels are on the same plug, but separated by
a black line.
The cable uses a
1" 4-connector jack and plug —
like the iPod, camcorders, cameras, and other
devices. This hardware format subdivides the
older
1" stereo plug into 4 sections that carry
right and left audio, plus video and ground.
MATERIALS
4-connector plug
mouser.com
part #171-7435, $1.53
4-connector jack
mouser.com
part #161-6435-EX, $1.10
4-wire cable, 4"– 8" length You can use a dollar-store USB cable, or any other 4-wire cable
will work.
Wire cutter/stripper
Soldering equipment
Multimeter
Standard camcorder A/V cable (not iPod-compatible)
For testing
Construct the Cable
Test your connections with a multimeter to be sure
you’ve put everything together properly.
1. Disassemble the plug and jack. Unscrew the
black plastic covers off the plug and jack while
holding onto the metal of the plug or the gray
plastic portion of the jack.
2. Thread the covers onto the cable. Cut any
plugs off of the 4-wire cable, then thread on the
covers you just unscrewed, back to back, with the
thinner part of the covers pointing toward the
middle of the cable. The covers are interchangeable, so don’t worry about which is which. If your
cable is too thick for the covers, trim the constrictive rear sections with scissors or a wire cutter.
3. Strip the wires. Use wire strippers to remove
the outer covering from both ends of your cable.
Then strip the ends of each individual wire.
4. Identify the jack connectors. The jack uses
4 connectors: 3 short rectangles in a row and a
larger, upside-down-T-shaped connector behind
them. From left to right, the rectangles are left
audio, ground, and video. The big connector in
back is right audio. Test the connectors for yourself with a multimeter by plugging a camcorder
A/V cable into the jack and measuring resistance
between the connectors and each RCA plug.
5. Identify the plug connectors. The plug also
uses 4 connectors, but in order to speak iPod,
it has a different configuration. (This is not the
standard setup.) The short connector hanging off
to the left is ground. A small plug in the center
