Minor Surgery: Making My Droid Dock More Useful w/pix

[JoeKC]

I bought the Droid Multimedia Dock assuming I would be able to find an app to keep it out of Clock Mode or at least be able to lower the light to an acceptable sleeping level. Well, neither happened. Since I really just wanted a dock that would sit by my bed and let me see interesting things during the night (like weather radar) I decided to remove the magnet from the dock. At first I removed the bottom using a #6 Torx driver, but aside from the weight, there's nothing interesting in the bottom

I finally isolated the magnet on the MM Dock to the extreme upper left corner of the support. There is no way to remove the magnet since it is actually inside the formed plastic. So I merely used my Dremel Hobby tool to cut out the magnet. I used a tiny washer to measure exactly where the magnet is imbedded -- it's very small and very strong. Cutting a 1/4" x 1/4" notch out worked just fine. Now the magnet is gone and I have a dock that serves my needs. I know at least one other (and cheaper) dock will appear soon, but for those of you stuck with the MM dock, this may prove useful

Shows the dock with section containing the magnet cut out.

I can now see useful things during the night like weather radar.

Here's the tiny piece of plastic I removed with the magnet still hidden.

 

[Juneau]

Just curious, but all I do is hit the "back" button on the bottom of the screen while in the dock and it backs out of the dock mode. I then do anything I want. Is there any difference other than hitting one button?

 

[Phoenixdroid]

Just curious, but all I do is hit the "back" button on the bottom of the screen while in the dock and it backs out of the dock mode. I then do anything I want. Is there any difference other than hitting one button?

Hahaha... I was thinking the same thing.......

Looks like the OP got a little Dremel happy........oh well

 

[messenger13]

Checkout my new thread for an alternate route, sans Dremel. Mine is a tad bit more reversible ... me thinks.

 

[jfe]

A big fan of trepanation I see

 

[BottledHate]

Spoiler

Just curious, but all I do is hit the "back" button on the bottom of the screen while in the dock and it backs out of the dock mode. I then do anything I want. Is there any difference other than hitting one button?

lol. pretty much.

 

[Droidus]

I can't stop laughing...I cant breathe...

 

[MikeyDeezy]

Super glue can alleviate this problem if the OP decides to fix this situation.

 

[bcromwell]

You did this the hard way!! All you needed to do was take off the black tape and remove the magnet unless they have redesigned the dock. You can do the same to the car dock as well, Take out the middle remove magnet put middle cover back on.

 

[BottledHate]

 

[rlandon]

When did the Kansas City Airport move to Florida? The map showing on the OP is my area.

 

[Dragoro]

Whats that double triangle thing next to the 3g status?

 

[Fabolous]

Whats that double triangle thing next to the 3g status?

Bluetooth


As for modding the dock, I like mine the way it is. However, if you don't like the media home, I suggest using an alternative method like the ones pointed out before, and not taking a dremel to the dock

 

[svtpickemup]

@joekc - LOL...............

@bcromwell - thx for the tip on the car dock.

 

[Gunner]

LOL. This thread is awesome.

 

[PetiePal]

LOL. Good to know you can do that with the dock, that's pretty awesome to have live weather radar

 

[greg72]

And how do you get the magnet out? I pulled the tape off and can clearly see the magnet but after several minutes of digging with an exacto knife and a bloody finger it won't come out. It appears to be epoxied in or something. Maybe the Dremel wasn't such a bad idea. At a minimum though I could take a small drill bit to it and probably bite into the magnet and take it out that way but I'm at work, will have to try when I get home.

 

[Fadelight]

You know... I have never seen this thread before, but it makes me laugh. Impatience has claimed the life of a perfectly good MM dock.

For what it is worth... and it obviously isn't at this point... Android 2.1 allows you to leave dock mode and have it do whatever you want. The new clock with 2.1 also goes MUCH darker.

Also... Did you just not realize that all you had to do was press the home icon on your clock to get it to go back to your phones home page?

 

[Dipster]

I was thinking, if I wanted to make the car dock more useful, I'd drill out a hole where the camera is, so that I could drive around with Layar or Google Goggles..

 

[Optimus]

This is funnier than when people brick their phone bc of impatience. I'm all for innovation but not everyone is McGuyver no matter how many posts you read.

 

[karimarie]

A big fan of trepanation I see

 

[Optimus]

This post deserves a sticky. I wonder what he thinks when he looks at the drilled dock now.

 

[biggdogg]

Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh, but seriously, all u had to do to accomplish what u got without butchering ur dock was to pull down the notification bar and close the media dock. As for the light problem, close ur eyes,lmao,seriously though,my clock has a light bulb at the bottom,click that and Viola, the light is dimmed out, not to mention it displays the outdoor temp on the bottom of the screen and still gives weather alerts in the notification panel. The future of American is looking very dim!

 

[CorinaPelmus]

The is an Android app, named Dock No-Op, which does the trick. It's free and it works like a charm.

 

[Optimus]

This is one of the great failposts of androidforums.