A1286 Mid 2010 Macbook Pro iSight Cable Pinout

[jimanez11]

In short, I am looking for help identifying the correct cable pinout to the motherboard and to the physical iSight for a Macbook Pro A1286 Mid 2010 internal iSight. For a more detailed description, please see below.

I received a water damaged Macbook Pro A1286 Mid 2010 from a friend of mine and have replaced the main logic board, keyboard and power button. The last thing that needs to be fixed is the internal iSight. When the laptop was damaged, the male end of the internal iSight cable was corroded where it connects to the logic board and the male end fell off once the connection was removed from the female port on the logic board. I have since attempted to splice the cable together with another cable with a similar male connector all to no avail. I have searched and searched to no avail for the pinout / wiring diagram for the mid 2010 internal isight in order to hopefully splice the correct wires together. I have included several pictures of both the original OEM cable, the 6-pin logic board connector and the internal spread of the iSight camera cable. The only other information I have is as follows:

Using this photo as a pin number reference (I doubt the numbers are correct) I have listed the voltage taken from my multimeter for each pin on the logic board.

Pin-1 - 5.06 V
Pin-2 - 3.32 V
Pin-3 - 3.32 V
Pin-4 - NC
Pin-5 - NC
Pin-6 - NC

I have separated all of the 6 internal wires that make up the iSight cable and have found the following cables inside of the outer sheaths.

Red Sheath - Light Blue internal cable
Green Sheath - Light Green internal cable
Orange Sheath - Light Yellow internal cable

It is my understanding that all internal iSights use a USB interface (hence the 5 volt power pin), so I am wondering why there are 6 cables and which cables need to be soldered to which pins on the logic board, how to differentiate between the green cables, etc to allow the iSight to work.

I have been able to splice an internal iMac iSight with a standard USB cable which works perfectly, but the iMac has a 4-pin standard USB connection.

Any help, wiring diagrams of the internal isight, logic board schematics, ideas and tips as to how I can get this working is appreciated!

I have included a few more pictures of the Logic Board connector, the cable, and the wire spread below.

A1286 Internal iSight Cable

A1286 Internal iSight Cable Connectors Zoom

Logic Board Pin Reference

Logic Board Connection

iSight Cable Spread

Again, any help is appreciated!

 

[MartinSwe]

Hi,

Have you had any progress with this? I am also looking for the pinout for the 6-pin iSight connector. My plan however is to hijack the USB-interface to connect stuff that I replace my DVD with.

If I understand your problem correctly it is to get the iSight working again, if so I would go for a new iSight cable such as: http://www.powerbookmedic.com/MacBook-Pro-15-Unibody-iSight-Cable-p-17643.html#

The picture of the product does not match, but the compability list includes A1286. Maybe an email will sort things out.

Here is another one, a little bit more pricy, but with the "correct" picture: http://www.thebookyard.com/product.php?cPath=39_118_151&products_id=6064

The connector is manufactured by Advanced Connectek Inc, http://www.acon.com. I have not been able to find this particular connector on their site, I guess it's an Apple only version which is not publically available.


I have not started the actual "hands on forensics" in my MacBook yet, currently i am just googling for solutions. I will post any future findings here.

/Martin

 

[dvke]

hi jimanez11,

do you find a solution for your problem? i'm in the same situation.
the build-in cable have the Colors (white, green, yellow, blue, red, orange) and the new one have only 4green, 1red and 1 orange...


thanks and regards,
alex

 

[tonimonton]

He has found an answer? I have the same problem and I can not identify colors

 

[poiihy]

AFAIK the yellow and blue are for the ambient light sensor because I followed them to the connector and found them separate from the other four, so I cut them and the camera still worked. Also it seems white is positive and red is ground. Somehow the white from the source side was shorting with itself... how can one wire short with itself?? Idk but it was incandescing itself whenever I fiddled with it. Idk about the other two wires but I couldn't get the camera to work with a usb cord. hopefully I didn't fry it by reversing polarity as I originally assumed red was positive and white was negative.