We know that the Dell Streak's 30-pin connector is not the same as the iPhone/iPod/iPad's 30-pin connector, but what exactly is it then?
There was some chatter in the forums last month about the possibility of it being PDMI and now, after an incident between a Streak home dock and a screwdriver, the suspicion has been confirmed. According to Linuxslate, the fellow who first raised the possibility of PDMI in the forums:
Pin-to-Pin testing shows that the Dock Connector pinout is in agreement with what is shown in [the PDMI] pinout diagram. I cannot confirm presence or absence of the USB 3.0 Pins as these are not brought out to any connector on the Dell Home Dock. With the exception of one tiny 6 pin component associated with the HDMI connector, a few small filter capacitors, and some 0 Ohm protection jumpers, there is no actual circuitry in the dock.
Now the race is on to find out what hackers can do with this information and to track down a company that sells PDMI cables for less than the $19.99 Dell charges for its USB Charge and Sync Cable.
Thanks, John!
ipod,iphone & ipad cable = easilt plug in
Streak connector = looks the same = fiddly and irritatingly hard to plug in.
#wasn’t impressed with the streak plug at all
I was never happy with that plug be it proprietary or PDMI (which is in result basically the same, at least for now). But what they charge for the USB cable is just ridiculous.
$19,99 is a lot, but look what that thing costs over here in Germany: http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?c=de&cs=dedhs1&l=de&sku=470-12032
Really, if there was another 5″ Android Phone I woult immediatly sell my Streak. $50 for a simple USB cable is simply a ripoff.
Protocol and physical construction are two different animals. Just because all of the pins line up with the schematic doesn’t mean the connector complies with the published PDMI Standard. I’ll be convinced when the Streak cable plugs into and works with a Slacker G2 radio.
“Protocol and physical construction are two different animals.”
True. From what I can see from pictures/drawings (See the forum post), it is PDMI physically as well.
It is NOT physically the same as Apple or Samsung Sansa 30
pin Connector. Don’t try those connectors. It is not the JEA DD1 series. I am still looking for a source for the proper connectors.
Also, they may still deviate from the standard. Perhaps they use the USB 3 pins for something else. Perhaps they use some of the ground pins for dock detection. I’m still looking into these details.
Until this:(http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_4338.asp) is purchased and detailed mechanical drawings of the connector can be compared to the Streak connector to verify the actual position of the pins match up I won’t be a believer. Unless of course somebody has a slacker G2 radio (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/slacker_g2_personal_radio) that does indeed have a PDMI connector and takes some close ups of it. Pin assignment + Slacker G2/Dell Streak cables and accessories working together = me convinced.
sorry… both links above will have to have the last parenthesis deleted for them to work.
I guess my point in all of this is that Dell could have easily taken a standard such as PDMI and used only the pin-out then proceeded to develop their own connector with those same electrical connections, while not paying any attention to conforming to the mechanical specifications of PDMI.
I’m very excited that there is attention around this issue. Thanks to all who are investigating this!
Once people get this 30-pin thing figured out for the Streak, what’s the likelihood of conversion-adapters being produced? We put ipod-integration from isimple into our car for my wife’s iphone, and I’m hoping that there will be a way to make this work with the Streak so that I can listen to tunes on my solo road trips. Of course, that’s assuming Dell will ever sell the Streak in Canada . . .
you will never be able to use that for the Streak. The pinouts on the apple 30 pin connector aren’t even close to that of PDMI.
I think JMS means that someone will come up with a similar cable to the iPod connector that will enable PDMI devices to connect to car head units (and other devices) as easily. If Dell will open source the pin-outs or someone reverse engineers it, this could happen, but only if PDMI becomes a standard.
I have a http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/CarAudioVideo/In-Dash/GPS-Navigation-Systems/AVIC-X910BT head unit in my car that I’m currently using with an iPod via the add-on cable I purchased. That solution works for me, but it’d be nice to use the Streak’s additional functionality (Pandora, etc.) with it. Unfortunately the head unit doesn’t support Bluetooth audio – the newer one’s do, but not a biggie for me.
Details of the Samsung Tab have just leaked out, including a (relatively poor) shot of the connector. Can someone who has a Streak take a look, and try to figure out if this might also be a PDMI connector? Having another manufacturer using PDMI would be awesome.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=zh-CN|en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.ifanr.com/17079
it has 4 pins at the battery, I would like to know which pins are postive(+) and negative(-) on the battery contact?
can help me to do a test on the battery??
ivan
did you find out which pins are pos and neg? I like to know,