Microphones are good...

[ElricFate]

And now my palm t|x has one. Wee!

I did it tonight with about 45 minutes of back-breaking soldering. Not hard once you have the right microphone, and a steady soldering hand.

I wish I had a webhost to put up some stupid little wav to show you just how good the sensitivity is on this mic, from inside the case, with no holes cut in it, from a foot away with a normal speaking voice.

And yes, I ended up using VoicePad instead of SoundRec, simply because SoundRec seemed to have a funny thing with reversing and doubling up the audio for some reason.

[ElricFate]

For those of you who are wondering how and why I did this. The why isn't so much important as the cool factor of saying I'm one of the few with a working (and very accurate) recording option on my t|x.

Regardless though, it was very easy. Digikey has microphones with a part number of "p11957-nd". I believe they're better known as electret mics? I'm not sure on that. At any rate. One wire soldered to pin 16 on the multiconnector, one on pin 17 of the multiconnector (very carefully since the pins are SO SO small).. and voila, instant voice recording. And these mics are crystal clear/very sensitive.

I love it. :-)

I'd take pictures, but my digicam takes HORRIBLY blurry shots... I still need to find a cheaper, used replacement for it that takes SD cards. Any suggestions? Pre-$50 would be nice (I can take used equipment, no problem, just needs to take CLEAR pictures) ... but Pre-$80 would be okay too.

[antonm]

I am always seriously impressed by people who can perform mods like this. There is no way that I would have the courage to do it!

Now I'm hoping some enterprising Palm 3rd party hardware organisation will bring out a plug-in device, perhaps something like the UC but without the attached cable, which contains a microphone and the necessary wiring/contacts, so that people like me can simply "plug in a mike and go", without having to do any intricate and warranty-voiding mods.

[ElricFate]

You can get a microphone that connects to the multi-connector.

It exists (or so I've heard).

[internetpilot]

You could simply buy an extra sync cable, cut the connector off, and then reconfigure the pins as ElricFate described, put the microphone sticking out of where the cable was, and presto -- plug-n-play mic. You could dress it up a bit with a foam cover, etc.

Anyone know what each pin is for? I'm starting to get some tinkering ideas...

[ElricFate]

http://discussion.brighthand.com/pal...threadid=88020

Toward the bottom.

For the record, the - of the mic (outer ring) goes to pin 16, and the + of the mic (inner circle) goes to pin 17.

[antonm]

Originally posted by internetpilot
You could simply buy an extra sync cable... [snip]

Anyone know where one might get hold of such bits -- in the UK?

[ElricFate]

eBay?

[antonm]

Yes, they're available on ebay. But I still quail at the thought of the finicky manipulation involved. I just know I'll botch it or, at the very least, make a dog's breakfast out of it.

Please can somebody make and sell them, preferably bundled with software?

[ElricFate]

Unfortunately making them and selling them, I wouldn't be able to do. Well... at least not for another month.

As for bundling them with software, that's illegal to do with the Voice Memo software, and VoiceRec (unless express permission was given by the authors) ...

And from personal experiences, my 1gb SD card is finicky, so recording TO it is a nono. I have to record direct to RAM to avoid a skip every five seconds (which I assume is the read/write cycle for the card).

Just a few thoughts. As to actually MAKING one and whatnot. I'm sure that there's someone around who could do it for you for a modest fee if you just wanted to buy a ready made cable.