Dr.Zoom
Hi Tech Redneck
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I think I'm done with the write up, but I might have missed or messed something up, so consider this still in progress. -06/11/14
After reading about all the ways to add an auxiliary input to the stock stereo, I tried to come up with the cheapest, simplest way I could. I aspire to one day have a great stereo, but until I do, I at least want to be able to listen to my music. And the stock stereo isn't terrible.
...And it also works great to take calls over the car speakers -which is huge for me because I can't hear much on my phone while driving even on speaker with it held up to my head and I don't like bluetooth headsets.
Below is a pic of my finished product. I simply cut the 2 wires inside the head unit that carry the radio signal from the radio tuner board to the amplifier and wired in a switching 1/8" stereo jack mounted on the dash near the radio.
When nothing is plugged into the jack, the radio plays, but when a plug is inserted, the signal from the radio is interrupted and the signal from what is plugged into the jack is sent to the amplifier. Unplug and I'm back to the radio signal.
The link below is to a quick video of me listening to the radio, then plugging in an mp3 player, changing through a couple songs real quick, then unplugging it, which goes back to the radio playing
Link to Video: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103835837826605298729/albums/6023055166953850577/6023055169109891026
Performance notes: My phone's mp3 player is actually even with the radio volume, so no problem at all. I was listening to the same song on my phone player and radio, and when I switched back and forth, I couldn't tell which was which. One of my mp3 players is quieter than the radio level, so if I'm using that one, I have to adjust the volume when I switch from radio to mp3. When you press a preset button, the radio goes silent for a second like you get when you change radio presets.
I used:
1 x 1/8" stereo phone jack Radio Shack part number 374-246 $2.99
2 x 16" pieces of shielded audio cable(you cut a headphone extension cable). It needs to have 3 conductors.
1 x 6" piece of black wire
Heat shrink tubing. An assortment pack should be available at your local parts store.
Tools:
4.5mm socket
6.5mm socket(1/4" was a loose fit, but worked)
Soldering iron. Mine's fancy and keeps the temperature at the tip the temperature you set. Cheap ones are basically just a heating element rather than a precision tool. You can make one work, but you may melt a lot more than what you're trying to solder. Sometime they ruin parts from overheating.
To use the same dash panel I used, you need some way to remove/rout/chisel plastic. I had to remove some material from the back of the panel where I mounted the jack. About half the thickness of the panel, about a 16th of an inch. Otherwise the jack wouldn't have any threads showing for the nut to thread onto. You could use a dremel, I used my soldering iron to melt a grid, then chiseled out the raised squares. Sounds harder than it was, but I don't recommend it if you've never done something like it before. Or do if you're the adventurous type and don't mind ruining things in the name of progress. lol. I also thought about using a forstner bit in a drill, but I already had a hole and that would have been a pain at that point.
Hopefully this all makes sense. Let me know of any errors and I'll correct them. Or improvements and I might try them out.
How To:
I'm going to start assuming you have the radio out.
Flip the radio upside down: Remove these 6 screws 4 x 4.5mm and 2 x 6.5mm(1/4"):
Remove the cover. Remove these 4 screws(4.5mm). Don't forget the one securing the antenna jack.
The board lifts up and the set of wires you're concerned with will act like a hinge.
I find it helpful to use something with a fine point to move the wires I need to work with out of their bunch. (The wires in this pic are just to show how I grab them out of the bunch. They aren't the ones you want.)
The ones you're concerned with are 11 and 12 from the left. Get them separated from the other wires.
11 is the Right. 12 is the Left. Cut these 2 wires about in the middle. The 2 that are on the hinged board are now the "out" from your radio and the 2 that are down in the radio are now the "in" to your amplifier.
Get one of your 16" pieces of shielded cable. [Usually in a shielded cable, the ground will be a bare wire wrapped around the colored wires inside the cable. If you cut the insulation for all 3 conductors back about an inch, take the bare wire and twist it so that it resembles the other wires rather than a big fan of wire, then put a piece of heat shrink tubing over it, then put another piece of heat shrink over all 3 of your wires, it'll make it look nice and clean and keep the ground wire insulated from accidental shorts. I chose Red for Right. White for Left. Black(black heat shrink) for ground.] Cut the shield back, strip, twist and tin the ends.
When I soldered them, I just put the wires side by side and soldered them, then used a little heat shrink over the joint. It's not a stressful environment, so it's good enough for me. It doesn't need to be Mil-Spec in my opinion.
Let's concentrate on the "outs". Strip, twist and tin the ends with solder. You only need to strip back about 1/16"-1/8" on all the wires in this project.
Connect your cable's red to #11, your white to #12 and get your 6" piece of black wire and solder them so it looks like this:
Don't worry about the black wire for now, we'll get to that later.
Thread your wire through the hole in the case. Just thread one wire through for now to keep things simple. I used the a convenient gap in the plug hole for an accessory CD player. You might need/want to get creative and make your own.
We're going to talk about the jack for a minute. The jack I used is set up like this:
Pin 1 = Ground
Pin 2 = Left "In"
Pin 3 = Left "Out"
Pin 4 = Right "Out"
Pin 5 = Right "In"
So make your connections at the jack for Pin 2(Red) and Pin 5(White) hold off on ground for now. This is tiny work and the ground will be in your way if you hook it up now.
I took this picture with everything hooked up already so you have to do a little imagining that the other wires aren't there and don't pay attention to the case being closed up -it's just to show you the jack. You should have made the connections circled in red. (Sorry for the blur.)
Make the connections at the jack for your other cable. Red to Pin 4. White to Pin 3
Now solder the 2 black ground wires from both cables to the #1 Pin.
Thread that cable through the hole into the radio.
Now back to the wires you cut that are down in the radio. Strip, twist and tin them. (While wishing you had little hands.) Take your cable that you just pulled through the case, solder the red wire to the #11 wire in the radio and the white wire to the #12 wire. We're almost done.
Now for the ground. The 3rd wire in your cables(in my case black) should still be unattached. Take those 2 wires and one end of your 6" piece of black wire and solder the three together.
You'll be putting 3 black wires together, like this:
Here's how I heat shrink. Just put the heat shrink tube over the joint:
Hit it with a lighter for a second or two and it will look like this:
Now that you have that end of the short black ground wire done, let's finish this.
The easiest ground I found was on the accessory cd/tape connector. Third from the left. Like so:
Button it back up. Test it out. I'll let you decide the best way to mount the jack and won't go into that.
After reading about all the ways to add an auxiliary input to the stock stereo, I tried to come up with the cheapest, simplest way I could. I aspire to one day have a great stereo, but until I do, I at least want to be able to listen to my music. And the stock stereo isn't terrible.
...And it also works great to take calls over the car speakers -which is huge for me because I can't hear much on my phone while driving even on speaker with it held up to my head and I don't like bluetooth headsets.
Below is a pic of my finished product. I simply cut the 2 wires inside the head unit that carry the radio signal from the radio tuner board to the amplifier and wired in a switching 1/8" stereo jack mounted on the dash near the radio.
When nothing is plugged into the jack, the radio plays, but when a plug is inserted, the signal from the radio is interrupted and the signal from what is plugged into the jack is sent to the amplifier. Unplug and I'm back to the radio signal.
The link below is to a quick video of me listening to the radio, then plugging in an mp3 player, changing through a couple songs real quick, then unplugging it, which goes back to the radio playing
Link to Video: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103835837826605298729/albums/6023055166953850577/6023055169109891026
Performance notes: My phone's mp3 player is actually even with the radio volume, so no problem at all. I was listening to the same song on my phone player and radio, and when I switched back and forth, I couldn't tell which was which. One of my mp3 players is quieter than the radio level, so if I'm using that one, I have to adjust the volume when I switch from radio to mp3. When you press a preset button, the radio goes silent for a second like you get when you change radio presets.
I used:
1 x 1/8" stereo phone jack Radio Shack part number 374-246 $2.99
2 x 16" pieces of shielded audio cable(you cut a headphone extension cable). It needs to have 3 conductors.
1 x 6" piece of black wire
Heat shrink tubing. An assortment pack should be available at your local parts store.
Tools:
4.5mm socket
6.5mm socket(1/4" was a loose fit, but worked)
Soldering iron. Mine's fancy and keeps the temperature at the tip the temperature you set. Cheap ones are basically just a heating element rather than a precision tool. You can make one work, but you may melt a lot more than what you're trying to solder. Sometime they ruin parts from overheating.
To use the same dash panel I used, you need some way to remove/rout/chisel plastic. I had to remove some material from the back of the panel where I mounted the jack. About half the thickness of the panel, about a 16th of an inch. Otherwise the jack wouldn't have any threads showing for the nut to thread onto. You could use a dremel, I used my soldering iron to melt a grid, then chiseled out the raised squares. Sounds harder than it was, but I don't recommend it if you've never done something like it before. Or do if you're the adventurous type and don't mind ruining things in the name of progress. lol. I also thought about using a forstner bit in a drill, but I already had a hole and that would have been a pain at that point.
Hopefully this all makes sense. Let me know of any errors and I'll correct them. Or improvements and I might try them out.
How To:
I'm going to start assuming you have the radio out.
Flip the radio upside down: Remove these 6 screws 4 x 4.5mm and 2 x 6.5mm(1/4"):
Remove the cover. Remove these 4 screws(4.5mm). Don't forget the one securing the antenna jack.
The board lifts up and the set of wires you're concerned with will act like a hinge.
I find it helpful to use something with a fine point to move the wires I need to work with out of their bunch. (The wires in this pic are just to show how I grab them out of the bunch. They aren't the ones you want.)
The ones you're concerned with are 11 and 12 from the left. Get them separated from the other wires.
11 is the Right. 12 is the Left. Cut these 2 wires about in the middle. The 2 that are on the hinged board are now the "out" from your radio and the 2 that are down in the radio are now the "in" to your amplifier.
Get one of your 16" pieces of shielded cable. [Usually in a shielded cable, the ground will be a bare wire wrapped around the colored wires inside the cable. If you cut the insulation for all 3 conductors back about an inch, take the bare wire and twist it so that it resembles the other wires rather than a big fan of wire, then put a piece of heat shrink tubing over it, then put another piece of heat shrink over all 3 of your wires, it'll make it look nice and clean and keep the ground wire insulated from accidental shorts. I chose Red for Right. White for Left. Black(black heat shrink) for ground.] Cut the shield back, strip, twist and tin the ends.
When I soldered them, I just put the wires side by side and soldered them, then used a little heat shrink over the joint. It's not a stressful environment, so it's good enough for me. It doesn't need to be Mil-Spec in my opinion.
Let's concentrate on the "outs". Strip, twist and tin the ends with solder. You only need to strip back about 1/16"-1/8" on all the wires in this project.
Connect your cable's red to #11, your white to #12 and get your 6" piece of black wire and solder them so it looks like this:
Don't worry about the black wire for now, we'll get to that later.
Thread your wire through the hole in the case. Just thread one wire through for now to keep things simple. I used the a convenient gap in the plug hole for an accessory CD player. You might need/want to get creative and make your own.
We're going to talk about the jack for a minute. The jack I used is set up like this:
Pin 1 = Ground
Pin 2 = Left "In"
Pin 3 = Left "Out"
Pin 4 = Right "Out"
Pin 5 = Right "In"
So make your connections at the jack for Pin 2(Red) and Pin 5(White) hold off on ground for now. This is tiny work and the ground will be in your way if you hook it up now.
I took this picture with everything hooked up already so you have to do a little imagining that the other wires aren't there and don't pay attention to the case being closed up -it's just to show you the jack. You should have made the connections circled in red. (Sorry for the blur.)
Make the connections at the jack for your other cable. Red to Pin 4. White to Pin 3
Now solder the 2 black ground wires from both cables to the #1 Pin.
Thread that cable through the hole into the radio.
Now back to the wires you cut that are down in the radio. Strip, twist and tin them. (While wishing you had little hands.) Take your cable that you just pulled through the case, solder the red wire to the #11 wire in the radio and the white wire to the #12 wire. We're almost done.
Now for the ground. The 3rd wire in your cables(in my case black) should still be unattached. Take those 2 wires and one end of your 6" piece of black wire and solder the three together.
You'll be putting 3 black wires together, like this:
Here's how I heat shrink. Just put the heat shrink tube over the joint:
Hit it with a lighter for a second or two and it will look like this:
Now that you have that end of the short black ground wire done, let's finish this.
The easiest ground I found was on the accessory cd/tape connector. Third from the left. Like so:
Button it back up. Test it out. I'll let you decide the best way to mount the jack and won't go into that.
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