Page 1 of 1
-
- teaman
- Member Since: 03 May 2019
- Location: Surrey
- Posts: 44
In-Car Apple TV
Do you want to know what I did last summer?
When I replaced my car last year I opted for rear screens in the headrests to keep the kids entertained on long journeys by playing videos downloaded onto an iPhone or iPad through a HDMI connection.
Unfortunately the solution never gave a good experience, the main culprit was the HDMI connection. Finally got fed-up with the crappy Apple Lighting to HDMI connector (3rd one that failed now) and every time I moved the iPhone / iPad on a journey it causes the HDMI connection to momentarily drop-out. This then necessitated re-syncing the connection between the iPhone / iPad, which seldom worked properly and you couldn't do safely if driving.
Apple CarPlay doesn't help here either because that is only for the driver screens, you can't AirPlay to the rear screens. Until now...
I had a couple of 3rd-gen Apple TVs that were not being used (having replaced them with 4K versions a couple of years back). So I though, I wonder if I could modify them to run off USB power, if so I could install them in the car. From a bit of research it looks like some people had done something similar.
I stripped down one of the old 3rd-gen units to get at the power supply. With a multimeter to hand I took a voltage reading from all the pins to figure out which ones needed what voltage. It turns out only 2 of the leads didn't register a voltage, I assumed these were for a temperature sensor, the other connections were all 3.47V which matched up with the rating sticker on the power supply (about 6W overall power usage).
(Interestingly the power supply output for the Apple TV 4K is 12V)
Next I took the power supply apart and replaced it with a variable DC-DC step-down. Then I stuck a micro USB connector into the mix, soldering single header pins and spare test leads (so I could replace components if necessary over time).
Then I cut the power connector from the old power supply and soldered the outputs to leads which were then plugged into the output of the step-down.
Again with the multimeter in hand I tuned the transformer output to 3.47V, then put a dab of glue on the adjuster screw to keep it set at that value.
Finally, I put it all back together, then plugged it into the car.
Awesome, I now have in-car Apple TV. I connected it to the car's hotspot and it works perfectly, I can either AirPlay to it from the phone or stream content through the hotspot
-
- John C
- Member Since: 06 Oct 2018
- Location: East Yorkshire
- Posts: 91
-
-
- teaman
- Member Since: 03 May 2019
- Location: Surrey
- Posts: 44
-
Page 1 of 1
DISCO5.CO.UK is independent and not affiliated to Jaguar Land Rover.