My wife has the new 2010 model prius – same stupid design, no warning, car is just dead,

I think this stupidity comes from the dealership repair model – they don’t want you fixing the car or diagnosing the car, they want you in the shop.

Brand new Nissan Leaf just threw a code, but of course on three different computer screens, there wasn’t a single useful piece of information. just blinking airbag light. And code scanners don’t work. It also has stupid 12v battery, which if it dies, kills the car. stuuuupid

Here is the correct (tested and 100% functional) wiring configuration which will allow you charge the iPod or iPhone while docked as well as connect a composite video signal (basic rca type plug) for watching video on your tv and also connect the audio output to either your tv or stereo (L+R RCA type plugs) for listening to the audio coming from the device.

First off, don’t bother opening up the dock station, simply cut the useless plug off of the end of the cord. After stripping away the main black casing you will see about a dozen or more colored wires as well as a bare wire that is wrapped around the other wires. Separate all wiring and then twist up that bare shiny wire so that it is now a single wire. This bare shiny wire is the ground for your charging source and will need to be connected to the ground of the power supply you will be using (only use a 5 volt 500mA supply, no more than that or you may damage the dock or your device) an old cellphone charger like a Motorola razor charger will work perfect.

Now that you have the ground hooked up to your power supply, you will need to find the smallest black wire in the bunch, this skinny black wire is you 5 volt positive input wire. (they must have made it black to try and confuse people so they don’t do what we are doing…) go ahead and hook the power up and dock the device and you will see the red led on the dock light up and the device will begin to charge. Just having a charging dock is a bonus since this dock would be useless otherwise, but we’re not gonna stop there.

Now, in that bunch of wires you will see a thick blue wire. This thick blue wire actually contains two wires inside that blue casing, so peel back the casing to reveal the two wires, one will be a white wire and the other will be a bare silver wire. The white wire is the positive wire for your video signal and the bare silver wire is the ground for the video signal. Just get a single old yellow RCA cord and chop one end off and hook the grounds together and the positives and there’s your video output.

Now, in the bunch of wires you will see a thick grey wire. Inside this grey wire is three more wires, a red, a white and a bare silver wire. The bare silver is the audio signal ground for both the left and right signals. The red is the positive for the right side audio signal and the white is the positive for the left side. Grab an old set of red and white RCA cords and chop one end off of both and hook em up according to the colors.

The rest of the wires are of no use to you, because this dock was never meant to sync with the tv like it does with iTunes on a pc. All those other wires are control wires which allow the Panasonic tv’s remote to control the functions of the device so you didn’t have to use the device to change media etc. so just tape up the ends of all the remaining wires so they can’t short out with any other wires.

Now make sure to use shrink tube or electrical tape to insulate each individual connection to prevent any interference or electrical shorts and voila! You now have an Idevice dock that will charge the device and also allow you to watch and listen to the content on your device such as Netflix or iTunes media or moviebox programs etc.

I always laugh when I see these docks selling for 50-70 bucks on eBay, because without this wiring modification, the dock is useless and worth nothing unless you have one of the few old panasonic tvs that use this dock. I figured out the wiring myself after a buddy of mine showed up with about 20 of these docks that he found in a garbage bin behind an electronics store. Yep, they tossed em out, but I modded every single one of them and sold em off for easy money. The total cost to mod one of these docks is around 5 bucks, and an idevice docking station that charges and plays audio and video on the tv is anywhere from 40-??? Bucks. Even a basic video output cord from Walmart is 25 bucks.

Hopefully this mod will help someone else save or make some extra cash. Enjoy!!!!