How to connect your iPod to your car stereo

I have an older car that does not have a direct way to connect my iPod to my car stereo. I thought that the FM transistors were the best way to connect my iPod, but after wasting $50 on one, I thought it would be worth while to share my results in this Instructable.

Step 1 Don't buy an FM transmitter

Unless you live in the boonies, you'll spend all your time switching channels to try and get rid of the static you're hearing. It works okay for long road trips, but still annoying.

Here's what I wasted my money on.

Comments

[Datawolf]

What about building the cassette adapter yourself ?
It's so easy !
Maybe my first instructable...

[jaxxster1]

what if your car is too old to have a radio/cassette player/anything to play music, but has the speakers wired in? is there a way to connect an ipod to the wires?

[BtheBike]

my brother took his deck out completely . he plugs his mp3 player into the amp for music and radio. no deck to rip off .

[skatelong]

Yay! i got mine 4 $3.50!!!

[cheeseman98]

Another way you can do it, and get better sould guality is check out if your car sterio has an auxilary jack. It should say in the user manual. If it does you can pick up a cable for about $5 at a suplus store and then run it from the back of your sterio into your glovebox. The cable looks something like this:

[JZ Price]

i found some of those cable at a dollar store once.they were 6ft too.

[JohnnyMelo]

now tell me xD i Have a MD car stereo and no aux input... guess im realy stuck with the fm transmiter unless i buy the sony ipod adapter for that radio...

[abadfart]

ya i have an late 80s early 90s legacy with a tape deck

[Mr. Squishy]

I have 2 cassette adapters, an FM Transmitter and also a USB car stereo. Mom bought a CD player for her van that came with an adapter (this was because she had no CD player built into her stereo, then my sister got a CD player for her birthday with an adapter, then we got iPods. But Dads truck had no cassette in his stereo, so we bought an FM transmitter. But then his stereo stopped working so he bought a new one that has a USB port so we wasted money on an FM transmitter too.

[ChaosJile119]

What do you do if you don't have a tape player ?

[cloudeporteus]

I guess your stuck with the fm transmitters.

[ChaosJile119]

Bummer.

[sound91]

You can hard wire a cable by taking out your stereo and determining where the cassette player hooks into the stereo and soldering a 3-conductor wire with a 3.5mm stereo plug on the end. The only thing you have to watch out for is that you only use one at a time.

[lebowski]

That would be a great Instructable!

[PSB]

Simple but works a treat, I have been thinking about how I would get my MP3's into my truck. Well what do you know I have everything I need sitting around. Thanks for the shove in the right direction! Just tried it and at last I am able to play MP3's while Mobile. TY.

[JordanMaster22]

they make the transmitters for cars that don't have a working audio input or cassette player. u mustve got a bargain because where i live those transmitters cost $99!

[bduffman]

only thing i wana no is y do u have a 60 gig ipod wat ever if u dont even have a nice sterio in ur car thats sad ay rip that thing out spend $100 get a nice sterio spend another $10 and get rca jacks or audio jack to plug into the newer and better cd player

[The magical duct tape kid]

This is cool, but I got my cassette adapter on ebay for $0.01 and $2.00 shipping.

[bosstjan]

I have just soldered this circuit:

http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/amp20w.asp

works perfectly (for a non-audio freak - comparable to a normal car stereo). This circuit costed me 6 euros - without the speakers.

[thewoodcarver]

I still have a 8-track what do I do? You could have saved $9 by looking at the $1 or $0.99 store

[perlpower]

Yea just buy an 8 track to cassette adapter and put the cassette adapter into the 8 track adapter.

[rc jedi]

you do not! I should ship you my saturday night fever 8 track, or sgt peppers.

[thewoodcarver]

Lol I do have 1 in the garage that I still use sometimes (when the kids friends are over to show them I am old), pulled from my first car .....you can find tapes at the flea markets for nothing

[ac1D]

Right! Store like DOLORAMA(canada) sell the cassette adapter for a buck, and walmart sell them 10 buck

[tyeo098]

Is this a manual on how to use a cassette adapter? Or reasons why not to buy an FM adapter? Why not read the inst. on building your own cassette adapter?

[theRIAA]

the only reason they made FM transmitters, was for cars with no cassette players.... is that an old tundra?

[stncilr]

doesn't take an instructable to figure that one out. Did you know it also works for other mp3 player and also cd players!! p.s. you can get those at the dollar store.

[GorillazMiko]

wow, smart!

[!Andrew_Modder!]

ya, actually online you can get these things for a couple of bucks, also iv seen them ALL THE TIME at my local Dollar Store :-)