Internal Geohot unlock switch

[texaspyro]

If you are going to be moding your iphone for Geohot's (& friends) nifty hardware unlock, I would install a small magnetic reed switch inside the phone. These are small cylinders of glass with two metal blades in them. When a magnet is brought near the switch, the contacts close. The reed switch would allow you to perform the hardware unlock technique without having to open the iphone case each time.

Connect the reed switch across the two unlock wires. Insulate it and the connections with tubing, tape, etc. Tuck the switch into whatever nook and/or cranny it will fit in. Ideally, you want to mount the switch away from the speakers and microphone so that your unlock magnet does not mess them up. Make sure you orient the reed so that your magnet will close the switch.

Whenever you need to close the "unlock" switch during the proceedure, just place a small, but fairly powerful magnet on the iphone case where you mounted the reed switch. You can usually scrounge a suitable magnet from an earphone.

Ebay seller FITZUGRT has some likely looking switches for sale cheap (10/$4). They are very small. You might also try places like Radio Shack or burglar alarm suppliers.

[sam]

Powerfulmagnet with ICs? You want to destroy the iPhone?

[texaspyro]

Powerfulmagnet with ICs? You want to destroy the iPhone?

We are talking about magnets that are like those in earphones and small speakers... absolutlely no way they will have any effect on an iphone (or your iphone would already be toast). You don't want to use some weak childs toy horseshoe magnet (it would probably work just fine though, those small disk shaped door alarm sensor magnets tend to be rather weak), but anything else should work just fine.

I have run my iphone and lots of other electronics across magnets several thousand of times more powerfull than anything thay you are likely to come across... absolutely no effect. A powerful magnet can damage a weaker magnet if forced N-N S-S. Hence, best to keep the reed switch away from the speakers if you are using a smash-your-fingers neodymium super-duper never-get-it-off-the-fridge wonder magnet. Play around with your reed switch and see what it takes to activate it.

Back in the before times, Hewlett Packard calculator hackers used reed switches/magnets to activate clock speedup circuits and card reader write protect bypass circuits. No problems whatsoever, and those early card reader systems were notoriusly fininky.

[maminyoo]

http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007/08/full-hardware-unlock-of-iphone-done.html

[az1324]

There will either be a software unlock or someone will figure out how to update the software without modifying the radio so I'm not too worried about it.

[bossfriend]

ok so if i get my iphone ( NIB ) unlocked the geo way by a pro at modding.... will i have to take it to him like every time apple updates? or could i just do it from home with software?

[RVN84]

take it in everytime, unless he installs a switch that can be triggered from outside...

i read elsewhere that perhaps there are pins spare in the dock connector, so these pins could be tied to the 2 wires, and a switch made on the dock.

[ncx5]

Why not just create two very small holes in in the plastic area, near the speaker as contact points. Next time you need a short just connect the touch points. Yeah this requires some drilling, but only on the cover...

;) my 2 cents.

[Diet]

Just found a reed switch 5,4mm long and 1,4mm in diameter. Probably the smallest one and there should be enough room in the iPhone for this :)
Available from a German distributor: http://reichelt.de - the website is in German only: http://www.reichelt.de/?ACTION=3;LA=4;GROUP=C31;GROUPID=3291;ARTICLE=137; START=0;SORT=artnr;OFFSET=1000

[texaspyro]

Just found a reed switch 5,4mm long and 1,4mm in diameter. Probably the smallest one and there should be enough room in the iPhone for this :)
Available from a German distributor: http://reichelt.de - the website is in German only: http://www.reichelt.de/?ACTION=3;LA=4;GROUP=C31;GROUPID=3291;ARTICLE=137; START=0;SORT=artnr;OFFSET=1000

That looks like a vey nice reed switch for this application. Finding space for typical reed switches can be tough.

I scavanged two reed switches from a very tiny mil spec reed relay. They have been mounted in iphones already and work great. They fit perfectly in the RF compartment next to the NOR chip where the etch was scraped and down to the capacitor below the one where Geohot picked up the +1.8V power line. A small disk magnet triggers the reed just fine. An Apple earbud does not... no need to worry about accidentally triggering the reed by carrying the phone and earbuds in the same pocket (I would recommend checking that before buttoning up your modded phone).

[freeproductions]

take it in everytime, unless he installs a switch that can be triggered from outside...

i read elsewhere that perhaps there are pins spare in the dock connector, so these pins could be tied to the 2 wires, and a switch made on the dock.

I like the dock idea! You could even just make a hacking dongle out of an old Dock connector with the specific pins shorted together, that you just plug in at the right moment.
Does anyone know the pinouts for the iPhone? I can only gather that some of them are different the well known iPod dock connector pinouts!

[Diet]

They fit perfectly in the RF compartment next to the NOR chip where the etch was scraped and down to the capacitor below the one where Geohot picked up the +1.8V power line.
Did you take a photo of this and could you post it here? Would be great!
Does anyone know the pinouts for the iPhone? I can only gather that some of them are different the well known iPod dock connector pinouts!
Have a look here in geohot's blog: http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007/07/dock-connector.html
A problem of the dock solution could be the 1,8V connected to a dock pin that's accidentally used in some other docking connector and then probably kill your iPhone - so be careful where you connect it to ...

[texaspyro]

Yes, we took pictures (with one of the iphones, of course... not the best thing for closeups though). Then we managed to lose the photos while mucking around with the software part of the unlock.

Since we managed to get the cases apart and back together again without leaving any obvious marks (it helps to have a rather skilled jeweler/watchmaker/elfen mystic handy), hopefully the next time that the cases will need to be opened will be to replace the battery in a few (yeah, right) years.

[Diet]

Hi,
yesterday I finished the installation of my internal unlock switch:

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4360/reedkontaktgm9.th.jpg (http://img404.imageshack.us/my.php?image=reedkontaktgm9.jpg)

Works great if you hold a magnet near the back side of the closed iPhone (about 1 or 2 mm away).

[texaspyro]

Looks nice, but I am a little bit concerned about the solder connection to the scraped etch. It looks like it is only bonded on one side of the reed wire. Those are rather large and heavy wires compared with the size of the etch. With just a little area of solder making contact, the reed may come loose if the phone is dropped, etc. Might not be a problem at all... the reed has a rather low mass and t would take a good whack to cause it to move enough to come loose. If it does then it is an easy fix, but then the whole ideas is one should not have to open the phone again.

The reeds that I used had smaller wires. I bent about 1/10" of the end so that it was parallel to the etch and soldered it (if one does that, make sure that to hold the wire with small pliers, etc and bend the end of the wire on the other side of the pliers from the reed. Those glass cylinders are fragile and if you try and bend a heavy wire too close to the reed, it may break).

[Diet]

Looks nice, but I am a little bit concerned about the solder connection to the scraped etch. It looks like it is only bonded on one side of the reed wire. Those are rather large and heavy wires compared with the size of the etch. With just a little area of solder making contact, the reed may come loose if the phone is dropped, etc.
This was also a concern of mine after soldering the wire but it's not that easy to bend it in the correct shape to fit better.
After the first soldering it actually broke loose when moving it a bit back and forth but after the second try it was fixed much better!
BTW: I first soldered the connection to the scraped etch and then to the SMD capacitor. The reed contact is also kept in place by the shielding cover of the basband module so I'm not very concerned about a possible breaking of the solder connection.
The reeds that I used had smaller wires. I bent about 1/10" of the end so that it was parallel to the etch and soldered it (if one does that, make sure that to hold the wire with small pliers, etc and bend the end of the wire on the other side of the pliers from the reed. Those glass cylinders are fragile and if you try and bend a heavy wire too close to the reed, it may break).
Yeah, they are very, very fragile! I ordered three of them but I didn't break one :)