[Droid Incredible General] thumper26:
I've had my Incredible for a month or two now, and rooted it the day I picked it up. I've dug all over this forum learning the ins and outs of this phone, and figured I'd finally give something back.

Car audio has always been a big hobby of mine, and I actually competed in sound quality a couple of years back. So, while researching the Incredible, as soon as I discovered the tv-out cable, my first thought was to feed it into my car. I was very proud of myself thinking I was the first person to come up with this...until I started searching, and realized I wasn't. At all.

Either way, it was hard finding info on this solution because google pulls nothing but details about the cable, and very little on the solution, so I figured I'd put what I've got here.

I have a 2005 Honda Accord with the factory 6 disc changer in the dash. The dual zone climate controls are integrated into the factory radio, so if you remove it, you lose that functionality (which I didn't want to do). There is a large storage pocket that is removable underneath the radio that allows for an aftermarket head unit, and lower dash kits are available for doing that.

I've gotten out of competition, and just have the factory deck now, but wanted a way to play music from any phone I had. PAC makes auxiliary input adapters that integrate with factory radios for just about any car. I bought one for my car, installed it, and can now plug in anything via 3.5mm headphone jack or by RCA.

When I got the phone, my first idea was a car dock where I could plug in the headphone jack and then charge it, but I hated the idea of having to deal with two cables every time. I had started off using CM7, liked it, but read people complaining about no tv-out functionality, which I could care less about, but the option being available meant that audio going out would be no problem, and since the cable has another input for charging, I could have a one plug solution, and so the project began.

I flashed my phone to SR4.0 to have the tv-out capability, (and love the ROM. I like a lot of the more sense based layouts)

First, the cable. The phone only recognizes tv-out when the video input is connected. This posed a problem for me, as I only needed audio. If the solution has been posted before, I couldn't find it, but if you take a female rca jack, or use a male rca jack with a coupler, and short the signal and ground wires together, the phone goes into tv-out mode and will send audio. I had a cheap pair of radio shack rca's laying around, and cut one end off to test this, and it worked flawlessly. In car audio, they're called muting plugs, and are used to troubleshoot engine noise issues.

Second, the charger. I didn't want to use my car charger port, so after some light research to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I confirmed you can take a car charger apart, solder a ground wire to the wire connected to the metal that sticks out of the side of the charger, and solder a power wire to the part going to the tip. On the charger I used, a fuse was inline, and if you want to retain that, you can use a large zip tie and heatshrink to retain it. I didn't b/c the charger was cheap, and if something was to ever short, it'd burn that out first. Regardless, solder leads to power and ground, and then tap into the wiring going into your factory accessory outlet (or cigarette lighter). Use a test light or multimeter to determine power from ground.

Third, the dock. Google sucks at finding good horizontal docking solutions. My first idea was to buy a horizontal cradle and fab it into the lower dash kit, but that's a lot of cutting, as well as having to remove the usb plug on the dock (because it's not extUSB), and really at the end of the day, you just need an L shaped piece of plastic with a hole cut out where the usb is. I was looking at Droid X docks with my friend, and noticed there are a lot of swivel mount car docks for that phone, and thought that'd be a lot easier to do. Further searching led me to proclip.com where they have docks for about any mobile device. *I tried posting a link, but spam got me* I found them while searching for docks thanks to someone on an ATV forum linking the site. It seems people are using their droids for navigation while going off-roading, and use these docks to keep them anchored.

On the quick search at the bottom of the main page, check the box saying you already have a mount, then under holders, select HTC Incredible to pull up the docks. I purchased 511147, holder with tilt swivel, and received it two days after ordering. It's very rugged, and the swivel seems well built. The mount on the right provides room to comfortably plug in a charger or cable, and I'm going to fab a piece to attach the tv-out cable and charger, and route the wire behind it and through the kit. The dock will be attached to the lower dash kit, and a little ABS plastic, epoxy putty, and paint will smooth over any seams. The other nice thing about this for me is the lower dash kit has a cutout for an aftermarket radio, and a spare pocket underneath. Using the dock, I still have full use of the pocket.

If you don't want to do this much custom fabrication, you can use one of their solutions. On the main page, select your car make and model, and they will provide you with the mounts they have. Their mounts attach to the car without screws or tape, and then from there you select your dock, which attaches to the mount.

Sorry this is long and somewhat rambly, but I've seen a lot of posts and questions asking about this kind of solution, with no clear definitive answer. I drove to work this morning listening to pandora via the tv out cable on my factory radio, with the phone being charged and zero problems.

Another side note, there is an adapter for the HTC Hero that is an extUSB plug that goes into a piece that has extUSB input, power input, and 3.5mm out. It's a lot more ideal for this solution, but doesn't work. The extUSB plug is shaped differently, and the pinouts are laid out differently in the plug. If someone was good at soldering, it'd make an even cleaner solution, as you could rout the adapter behind the dash and plug everything into it.

If someone was interested in swapping the ends on that adapter with one that'd fit the Incredible, I'd be willing to pay for it, just for the lower profile and aesthetics of what I'm doing.

I'll update this with pictures once I get it all installed. Hopefully this is helpful, and I didn't just waste a bunch of time typing what was in another post that I've been unable to find. :p