Convert a radio tape player to an MP3 Boombox

Step 5 Prepare for the input from the MP3 Player

In order to play an MP3 Player through the boombox, the plan is to hook the headphone output of the MP3 player to the tape head wires. One could just buy a 1/8 inch stereo phono plug from a place like Radio Shack and let that plug hang out of the boombox to hook to the MP3 player, but I didn't want to spend any more money on this project that I had to and didn't like the idea of having the wire hanging out and all, so I decided to re-use the headphones jack in the old boombox. The jack was soldered into the circuit board such that it poked through the top of the case so I didn't want to completely remove it and have to come up with a way to attach it.
To use the jack, I knew I needed to disconnect it from the rest of the audio circuit. To disconnect it with it still in place, I actually used a small screwdriver to scrape through the circuit traces so the headphone jack would no longer be really attached to anything. See the notes in the picture for other details.

Comments

[mode1]

can you tell me more about wires coming to that headphone output, can you tell which wires where goes? sorry for bad english

[vincze]

Can't i just connect a 3.5mm jack to the wires going from the tape thingy to the board?

[HappyDad]

Hi Vincze, I think the output of the wires there would be too low; it seems it needs the pre-amplifier to be strong enough.

[sjlammer]

You can easily get a panel or chassis mount 3.5 mm jack from a place like allelectronics.com