Add Bluetooth To An Ibook (permanently)

ibook

man, oh, man–i love when you’re working on a hack and then see someone else do it and figures out stuff you didn’t think of. i had been using my ibook with the external bluetooth dongle, but was thinking of putting one internally in the ibook, this hack shows you how to do this. the only downside with this is the usb port can’t be used for anything else, i think another way might be to solder in a small usb hub then add the bluetooth inside.

24 thoughts on “Add Bluetooth To An Ibook (permanently)

  1. because of the crippling of the usb usage this hack could be better by picking up a mini usb hub, taking it apart and instead of connecting the BT directly to the usb port to connect it to the hub and the hub be connected to the usb port then using the same soldering technique applied to the BT do so to the exposed usb port from the hub. now your daisy chaining is in place and all is well and done without the restrictions and limitations of disabling a perfectly fine usb port :)

    Israel Torres

  2. i wonder if it’s possible to “piggy back” with the connection in a USB mouse.

    install a BT module inside the casing of the mouse and have it’s wiring attached with that of the mouse.

    just a thought.

  3. this doesn’t relate to this hack, but is rather a request. does anyone know of a way to cheaply hooking up a ps2 wirelessly? the cheapest I can see is shelling out for a linksys game adapter or ethernet to wireless bridge. is there any way of modding around to get something else worked out for this?

  4. you can turn off the Bluetooth module in the OS. you can place the on/off switch conveniently on the top right of the menu bar.

    it may still be drawing power in the “off” state, but that’s negligible.

  5. for non – iBook bluetooth, the 3.0v of 3com’s bluetooth pc card (xjack bluetooth antenna) works with keyboards/mice/cell phones. I haven’t tried it with bluetooth headsets tho’. Got one in my 1ghz Ti.

  6. Cool hack.. I am going to do this to my mac mini this weekend and post the hack. Except, I am going to put in a four port hub, griffin sound card, dlink bluetooth and an a 802.11g usb. I’ll upload the hacks next week.

    I would; however, like offer some thoughts and suggestions. It might be cool to remove the cases and usb connectors from the circuit board as you don’t have a lot of realestate.

    I would also seriously suggest RF sheilding and keeping the wires as short as possible. Without the rf sheilding, your wire has the potential to be an antenna radiating an rf signal around 12MHZ which could cause troubles. I would also suggest soldering a .1uf decoupling cap across vcc and ground on all of your usb devies to reduce the possiblity of problems with noise.

    When I do my hack I also plan to run one usb port back to the external usb port on the mac so I do not lose either of my external ports.

  7. Hello all,
    nice hack, and useful comments.
    I have an idea for a similar thing on my (ancient) PowerBook G4 Ti.
    Having the BlueTooth thing sticking out of the machine is downright unpractical, so fitting it inside makes a lot more sense.
    But as mentioned in the comments, being left with only one USB-port is also awkward.
    Therefore it is really necessary to have a hub to regain the number of USB-ports.
    Another comment regarding the power-consumption ( especially when the machine sleeps ) has been mentioned, and BlueTooth is regarded as a quite power-consuming technology.
    Since the USB-ports are powered even in sleep, a solution could be to add a small relay that is powered from the FireWire-port, since that powers down in sleep.
    Currently I have only this machine, so I am not too keen on tinkering with it, but as soon as I have a ‘Plan B’ the project will be started and my results will be posted here.

    PBMan

  8. i wonder what size or what kind is the usb connector in the logic board, i want to do this mod, but i want to be sure if i can get the connetor…
    The other thing that worries me is that a USB need 5V and the socket on the logic board works with 3.7V?….I might be able to put something in between to put the volt down a bit….(i dont know if is neccesary)…

  9. On a similar note:
    I wonder if this could be done on a MB/MBP using a USB GPS dongle. The dongle I have can still “see” 5-7 satellites in a basement with no windows, so it might work in the case or if there was a small window drilled(it’s only a computer, not a child, you can drill it :P). I hate that it sticks out the side, I”m always afraid of snapping it off. This would be great and who else has a MBP with built in GPS? hehe

  10. Hey forum members

    I just joined this forum.

    Great work by the admin, mods and seriously every member around.

    A few days ago I read that there is a treatment for diabetes on http://www.healthcaredaily.org
    Is this way of curing diabetes mentioned actually true, If so I should have found out earlier! The website http://www.healthcaredaily.org looks legit

    Could you someone tell me if this healthcare information is for real?

    Thanks

    Loolillefly

  11. Доброго времени суток!
    Решил поделится своей проблемой. Я ищу кондиционеры. Скоро лето, я живу на последнем этаже, на южной стороне дома. Летом такая жара, что спасает исключительно холодный душ несколько раз в день. Посоветуйте который кондиционер оптимально мало жрет энергии ? А то у меня и куллер стоит дома + 3 компа…За электричество огого выходит :( На yourconditions.ru спрашивал, но они что-то невразумительное сказали, я ничего и не понял.
    В общем хочется узнать мнение народа! ) Жду!

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