Max car dock

MrBigFeathers said:

My buddy has the universal dock and has a Note 2. It is spring loaded I believe and adjusts to fit any phone. I didn't look super close but he opened the arms and put his Note in and the arms came together to hold the phone. It swivels so it works in portrait or landscape. It comes with connectors for Samsung or HTC to make the phone go into dock mode which wouldn't work for the new Moto phones unless they release a new cable or dock. But short of making the phone go into car mode it would work great with the Maxx. And if the Maxx will go into car mode anyway when it knows you are going fast enough to be driving that might not matter.

Might be worth a try, if not Amazon will let you return it. I would like to see if they release a new cable at least for the Motos or release a new dock with magnets in it for dock mode.

SO I can't say for sure since I don't have a Maxx yet but it held his Note 2 with a case fine and my Galaxy Nexus with a TPU case just fine.

It also has a suction mount that suctions to the dash not just a window. Which I really like as I hate having suction cups on my windshield.

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Hey, just wanted to chime in with my experience with iBOLT.
I was underwhelmed as well with the Griffin mount so I began searching for an alternative. The only problem with universal mounts is the arms that hold the phone usually hit the power volume buttons.
I was always happy with the iBOLT mounts that I had for my Samsung & HTC phones, but they didn't have a mount for Moto phones. I got to looking at the mounts for the Galaxy S4 since they are close in size. They seemed like they would work, but the guy at iBOLT wasn't sure on the fit, and the micro USB port/ cable has a resistor for charging the Samsung phones that won't work for Motorola phones.
I then remembered I still had my iBOLT mount for my GS3. As far as the fit, if you remove any adapters (the ones for no case, case, or extended battery) it will fit. My Maxx has the high gloss silicon (tpu) case on it, & it fits just a bit snug, but is easy to remove. And with the spring loaded arm that snaps down to hold it in place, I don't believe it'll go anywhere. As far as charging, I run my charger cord directly into the phone's port. I haven't tried to find a way to make it go into dock mode, and just rely on Moto Assist knowing when I'm driving. That's my solution until (or if) nothing better comes along.

Thanks for this info.
This looks very similar to the car mount I have for my Bionic and I really liked that one.
I would be interested in the fit of the phone with no case.
Would you check that out?

SNeitzel said:

Thanks for this info.
This looks very similar to the car mount I have for my Bionic and I really liked that one.
I would be interested in the fit of the phone with no case.
Would you check that out?

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Just tried it without the case and the fit is almost perfect. Once in with the arm down, it rocks slightly (the pivot point is the restraining arm) due to the difference of the corners between the GS3 and Maxx. The Maxx's corners are more square compared to the S3, so the side of the phone that goes into the mount has a slight gap between it and the mount's surface. In other words the Maxx doesn't make full surface to surface contact with the mount, only at the corners. The gap is tiny, like around 1/32" by my guess. I don't see any reason it wouldn't also work without the case, except maybe if it's mounted for extended periods in a moving car you might see wear marks at the corners of the phone that fit inside the mount. Hope that helps.

Posted below

I can't find your post. I'm still looking for a car dock like my old Bionic that could charge and output music. I am planning on buying that Skimodo to protect the glass.

Posted below

OK guys, first time poster on this forum... I think. And let me say up front I can be long winded to cover details I feel help some people but feel free to skip to the pics as I'm sure they probably are self explanatory for most.

But I agree with this thread from the beginning. I'm OG Droid > Razr> Droid Maxx, I owned moto car docks for all and loved them. I luckily read this thread before ordering the "official dock" made by Griffin. I was able to look at one in the store and saw immediately what everyone was complaining about. So I started thinking which led to tinkering and this is what I came up with. (I'll add that I bought this phone from a girl who had it a week, she bought two cases for it a purple Defender case and a pink commuter case and then bought an iphone instead, so I got the Maxx for $250 )

I purchased the Griffin Reveal case for the Maxx (the one with the plexi glass back) because it was the smallest and wanted something to protect it being so new to me. While bringing in all my stuff I ended up having my Razr car dock, and the previously mentioned purple and pink cases laying on the table when I had an idea.....

I tried slapping the Maxx in the Razr car dock and noticed that it allllllmost fit. But then thought even if it fit the micro usb plug wouldn't have lined up because it was offset to one side for the Razr and the Maxx is obviously centered. This led me to think I could disassemble maybe drill a few holes and align it to the center of the "cradle."



I then abandoned the idea of fitting the Maxx in the cradle portion that was made for the Razr.

Having the PINK! commuter case within reach I slapped my Maxx in it without the rubber insert made for the pink commuter case, without the rubber insert there is clearly a gap. So I then tried sliding the Maxx with my new griffin case into the pink outer commuter case shell... it surprisingly fit perfectly! the commuter case is very sturdy on the back and flexes just a little on the sides to allow the phone to slide in. Which is both what it is made to do and what would work perfectly in this application.

Here is the Griffin "Reveal" clear back case for the Maxx that I'm using as an acutally normal phone case


Here is my Maxx in the Griffin case



So the idea of using the sliding charging portion of the razr dock combined with the Droid Maxx commuter case looked promising. It just needed a little material removed from the bottom to allow the sliding micro usb port clearance. So I marked the area in black and started snipping with wire cutters haha


These 2 pica show a thin strip remaining but I later removed it as it added no strength to the new "design"



I put the phone + reveal case into the pink shell and lined up the charging port. Made a few percise measurements and markings with a sharpie. Making sure when mounted together the usb port would line up at the right depth height and width.


After outlining the placement of the charger portion of the dock onto the pink shell I used a piece of paper to copy the hole pattern from the underside of the charger portion of the doc and then marked where the holes needed to be drilled on the pink shell


After drilling the holes I screw the two pieces together (Starting to look like a real dock... a little)




You'll notice that the bottom two screws holes (the closest to the charging port) are empty. On the final setup I put the tiniest washer I could find between the cradle and charging port before putting the screw in one hole, and I left the other whole empty. Because the pink shell curves to fit the phone it needs a slight more gap away from the charging portion of the case. I originally left the two holes empty and it worked fine but thought one a screw and a washer would be more "legit". but with this setup the Male micro usb slides in PERFECTLY to the phone. I mean it literally slides into the phone better than the dock originally did for the droid razr it was designed for haha

So for me since the case is pink (clearly if someone wanted to attempt the same they'd just buy Black) I had to solve the problem with plastic binding paint


Reassembled with the super slim tiny washer under the bottum right most screw (visible with the flash in this pic)







I was concerned that the scews would scratch the back of the clear acrylic Griffin case. so I used small squares of black Gorilla tape to cover them. I thought of using the small round rubber protectors made for kitchen cabniet doors but didn't have any.


and Walla the finally product, a car dock that charges and all the ports are made for the phone so your CAMERA, SPEAKER PHONE, MIC, and all sound cancelling mics work perfect!! Please keep in mind I was snapping photos without planning on posting so some are not perfect AND you will notice black Gorilla tape on the tightening scew... this is an unrelated fix I over tighten it soon after getting it for the razr. But the Gorilla tape and epoxy has held up for years now haha. If anyone still reading allllll this knows where I can get a cheap replacement ball joint tightener please let me know.




It may be hard to believe but the whole thing is 100% sturdy and works perfect for me so far!! Again long winded but hope it helps somebody

-Kyle

Thanks for the post, waahiven. McGyver would be proud...

Very cool. The only change I might make would be to use epoxy instead of screws. The downside is of course, epoxy is permanent so you'ld have to get it right the first time.

NewArtDroid said:

I'm still looking for a car dock like my old Bionic that could charge and output music.

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Not sure its possible through the usb connection like in many of the old moto phones. I've tried plugging my Maxx into my Bionic Dock and using the cable and it didn't work for that functionality. Though, I just use bluetooth in both my cars so its not a big deal for me, but it certainly was a clever idea. You might consider getting a bluetooth device that can output to a headphone and attach it to your aux-in. Its not as elegant, but would eliminate the extra connection you'ld have to make everytime you dock the phone.