Corolla 2007 ipod radio aux input hack

Step 2 The radio dissasembly

There are 3 different type of screws. The first are the huge ones for the side harness, take those out first and put the harnesses aside.
The next are the little metal to metal screws, those are the majority.
There is also one more metal to metal screw, but it is for the cd drive, and there are two screws that look different from all the rest. They are different sizes, and need to be put in the right hole.
There are a couple screws on the sides of the radio, on the top of the radio, and on the back there are about 6 that are connected to the metal outer shell. take all of them out and the top part that says open should be opened first, then the sides, which slide straight up.
The cd part is loose and should slide straight up out.
-Be careful with the cable, and unplug it. The images are of it after I soldered the wires, but you can stil see how it fits together.
I used a long headphone jack I got from radioshack and cut it to my desired length and stripped the wires. I played around to get the right ones, and the solder points are circled in the pic.

Comments

[jacintoalfa]

i have the 3.5mm extention cable, when i cut it, how do i know or test which one is right, left and ground?

[rthompson3]

I found this info helpful when we did this hack yesterday. For a 3.5mm stereo cord, the pinouts are as follows:
The Tip is your Left audio input (LCh).
The Ring (next contact) is the Right audio input (RCh).
The Sleeve (last contact, near the strain relief and cord) is Common.

You'll want to use a multimeter from the wire to each of these inputs and write down the color of the wire associated with LCh, RCh, and Common.

Also, we traced the inputs from the CD player to the board where you'll solder. The inputs were clearly labeled on the CD players board. Finally, we didn't remove the ribbon connector because it seemed to use just the through-hole mounts (with light-to-moderate force, I couldn't separate the connector). This required some careful soldering, but it worked out okay.

Thanks for this tutorial - I love the sound quality!

[zitosport]

I need help with a 2004 Corollas the stereo is a single cd player but instead of having 14 pins it has 17 pins...how do i figure it out tohave the right one?? I tried picking the same ones as in the pic but it didnt work...my email [e-mail] thanks in advanced!

[Cpt. Caleb]

hey trying to wire directly into my cassete deck so I can have my own ipod hook up, but every time I make a connection into the ribbon cable that plays music I get a nasty electronic buzz that's really pretty high pitched, but in only happens when the ipod is turned on. any Ideas on why and how to fix? and if you've got the knowledge, my cassete player realizes it's not playing a cassete after ahwhile and shuts off, any ideas to fix? thanks

[booyau]

Well after taking over an hour to get the radio out (despite reading these and at least two other detailed instructions out there) and then another couple of hours getting the radio disassembled VERY CAREFULLY and getting the solder joints right, my CD changer and aux input are non-functional. When I plug the power back in I hear a series of noises like the CD changer is trying to "boot", and it keeps cycling like that over and over again. The radio works but the changer keeps making the noises. When I push the Load button, it says "wait"... and then after about 10 seconds I get two beeps and it stays on the radio. I can't believe after all the careful work, it's not working! Any ideas anyone?

[chrisayad]

I forgot to add... ON THE CLOSEUP PICTURE OF THE SOLDER POINTS: the correct layout fas found by trial and error, you can do it to your radio too if you have different connections! Just play something to a couple of wires, turn on the cd player so the amp starts working and see which ones make music!

[_udo_]

I just found this page. I will try to add the iPod input to my 2004 Buick radio using the instructions. I will use the casette input if possible, and disconnect the audio wires from the casette head to prevent downgrading my iPod connection. I will try this method to find the audio connection. 1. Insert a CD or casette, and play it through the radio. 2. Use a sensitive AC meter, I guess about 300mV full scale would do, to probe for the audio being played. 3. Connect one meter probe (usually black) to the chassis (ground) probe with the other for the audio signal. You should be able to tell when you hit the correct pins (left or right audio) by watching the AC meter swing up on loud sounds and go down on low sounds. This method is safer, as someone pointed already out, than applying a voltage to find the correct connection points.

[XHorntail]

I dunno how I feel about that man.. Applying active voltage to random pins is a good way to fry your hardware..

[chrisayad]

..sigh.. There are times when this is acceptable, and times when it is not. There are certain pins I would try it on, and certain pins I would instinctively 'just avoid'. For this application, I took every reasonable precaution for my own hardware as you should on your own. If you really are worried you should just take it slow and try to be logical about things.. In my case, I could tell that the big ones on the outside were ground by the way the traces connected to them on the board, and I started with that as my audio ground, in theory, ANY common ground point that is common with the input circuit ground would work as the input ground. Yes, the other part involved a little risk, but in looking at the traces that the pins are connected to, you can get either a rough estimate or a pretty good idea of what the pin is for, just by following its connection! cool! I think I should just start charging...

[dchall8]

These are helpful. Thanks. And despite what you want me to believe, my FM transmitter works great. i have a 2 gig card in it with music mp3s. I got it back in August and use the heck out of it. Yesterday I used it for about 6 hours. Is there something about these things that you know and I don't?

[chrisayad]

yes they are limited by the frequency that they output. you can tell the difference if your music is higher than 96kbs i think. Your mp3s might be encoded in a data rate in which the fm modulation wont change much, but all my songs are encoded at near lossless quality because they are trance and such and they NEED to sound perfect. its actually quite variable but because of the way it transmits, by design, it is a lower quality wave. try listening to a high quality song on your headphones and listen for the higher pitch noises and then try to listen to them on your cars radio with the FM modulator, the sound will be ok to listen to, similar to the quality of the FM radio you receive, but not as clear as CD quality or direct-link through which I have been listening for about a week and it works pretty well. its like listening to glass break in front of your face vs. listening to it on the radio. The only thing I noticed is that the signal strength must be over 50% on my ipod nano for the radio to receive it clearly. Other than that the sound quality is flawless. I am only restricted to my encoding quality now.

[tirituf]

Hi, I want to ask you what do u mean by signal strength on your ipod nano and 50%. Once you transmit your audio signal there is no signal strength unless it is a radio signal. I want to use your technique in my corolla but want to make sure everything before I mess anything up. Please clarify Mr. Chrisayad thank you

[tirituf]

thank you for your reply, I will open it up next week. Quick questions 1. Is it really a stereo line in or it is a strong radio line in? 2. How about those boxes on ebay for 64 bucks where you dont have to solder anything? 3. Does your system outputs any kind of unwanted noise? 4. Does your system outputs noise at different speeds (RPMs)? 5. How much would you rate quality of the output out of 10 with your method? compared to the output of regular car cd player?

[chrisayad]

Yes about the 50% thing. First, I meant 50% volume level using the volume control on the ipod. The type of device is a nano. The output statistics can be found by contacting apple. The volume can be turned all the way down and the music will still be heard, but the "fuzz" etc. created by the radio internal amplifier is loud enough to hear (about the same as if it was plugged into a home stereo and turned down(forcing you to turn the amplification up), and I hate that sound. It really has nothing to do with the way the wires are connected, and if you are trying to get everything right, you can follow my instructions and do your own testing while you have your radio apart to verify that my solder points are correct. Once you take the radio apart to expose the wiring, you can plug it back in with a blank cd in there and probe around with some music playing on your mp3 player to a stripped end of a headphone cord, ie. right+ left+ and comm- I found the solder points to work first try, I guess I was just lucky. The ground one I used MIGHT be the entire ground for the chassis too, it still works, but if you find a better negative input for the speakers msg me. I have been using the input jack every day for my ipod and occasionally for my laptop. It works great and If you need anything else just ask. All you really need to do is solder the wires to the points on the circuit CAREFULLY because if you mess up you could ruin your cd component of your radio, or if you mess up bad enough you could ruin the whole radio. The points to solder are average size, so difficulty should be average.