MP3 player "input" for car stereo.

This instructable was inspired by http://www.instructables.com/id/Add-an-auxiliary-MP3Ipod-input-to-your-cars-st/?ALLSTEPS so thank you "aka_bigred" who was the original author. This mod will allow you to add an MP3 player input jack to your car stereo.

This is made for a Stereo with a CD player WITHOUT an AUX option.

Caution. I take no responsibility if this messes up your Cd player, your MP3 player or worse. This mod is not perfect but it works for my purposes. To you nay sayers keep it to yourself.

This mod requires you to take apart and reassemble your cars cd player if you don't feel comfortable doing it then don't

The items I used in the mod are:
Pioneer DEH-3400 (Make Year 2002)
30 Gig IPOD video
Old pair of headphones

Step 1: Stereo Removal

Remove the car stereo. I did not take pictures because everyone has a different stereo.

Comments

[teejer]

Tried this a couple weeks ago on my '02 Focus and its standard issue p/n 1S4F-18C838-BA   AM-FM-CD (sgl disc) ........and IT WORKED GREAT.  Thanks for a complete, very well written guide.  Added a couple pix to show location of R and L Out and Grd terminals on this board. 

[jdogtotherescue]

so i took my stereo out yesterday and did this but instead of connecting the cable to the cd player and using a silent cd i just hooked it to my radio tuner. it was just on the bottom of the main board. there were right and left outs and two grounds. it works really well. when an ipod or my laptop is plugged in it just takes over the radio. then if you want to listen to the radio unplug the ipod or laptop or whatever you have. i had a problem with a high pitched electric whine but only sometimes so i fixed this by messing with the audio settings bringing the high down to 0.

[mikeklepacz]

Awesome, I am glad that it worked out for you. I am thinking of doing in it a Honda CRV next.

[dcovey1]

awesome post. took some free headphones from a flight I took, took apart my pioneer, found the exact markings, and bam. 3 solder points and 30 minutes and I was driving my classic beetle with its top down and listening to Pandora from my iPhone.

[clementcharles98]

Cool

[nboulton]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post this hack - very nicely laid out. I have gotten as far as taking apart my pioneer DEH-1550 car stereo and I can see the labels ROUT, LOUT and AGND, but the exact location of their respective connection points is still ambiguous. If you could spare a moment, I would really appreciate some guidance. I have attached a picture to show you what I'm faced with. Do you think my equivalent connection points are "R", "L" and the point between these two (shown just to the right of the ribbon connector in my image). Thanks.

[nboulton]

photo uploader didn't seem to work for me in the previous message. Try again....

[mikeklepacz]

I would say yes, I would solder it, just a tack though and see if you can get it to work before you solder it completely and seal the connection. Get it soldered then put it together and see if it has a signal.

That is what I did because at the time I was really shooting in the dark.

I am pumped that people are still getting use out of this instructable. My stereo still works. After all of these years the cd player stopped ejecting the cd, so the only thing that works is my MP3 connection.

[nboulton]

Sweet deal. Great words of encouragement. I had to work out a way to ground the headphone wires without picking up any signal noise as there was no obvious agnd connection. After trial and error I got there in the end. Road tripping through NZ at the moment and this had made our clapped out banger a much more enjoyable ride. Thanks again for the post.

[fifanatic82]

Hey nboulton, which pin did you end up using as your ground? I've got my Pioneer DEH-1500 open now and it looks like we've got the same pin layout. Any advice?

[nboulton]

Hi there, not 100% sure but it was either GND1 or GND2. In fact I'm pretty sure I used GND2 as it is furthest from any other pins so easier to solder to. Good luck!

[fifanatic82]

Well I started by connecting the ground to the pin between the L and R pins, like you originally thought... and it's working well so far! Great sound quality. In fact, with the DEH-1500 there is no need to burn a silent disc; whenever an auxiliary source is connected, the new signal takes over so the audio from the CD is not heard at all. Pretty nifty! Thanks for the quick response though, if I run into any trouble with the mysterious pin between L and R, I'll try out one of the GNDs.

[nboulton]

You have a far steady hand than I do then!

I think you've probably got a better set up than me - when I plugged the 3.5mm jack into my smart phone to play music, I found that it was causing my phone to shut down. I had to turn off the CD player prior to connecting it to get around this issue. Perhaps by using one of the GNDs I was getting an undesired current through the headphone jack. If you're not having this same issue, then I might consider changing my set up to match yours.

It's a pretty awesome hack isn't it. Full credit to mikeklepacz.

[dumpstar]

What about adding an sd card slot? Or a usb slot?

[ivanjacob]

then you wil need a microprocessor that can read mp3s

[inder01]

Like to know...


http://free-acai-berry-trials.info/

[carkif]

hi can i get some help please my stereo doesn't have those marks or any that i would think are left and right channels and my camera doesn't focus right so i cant post pictures the stereo is a panasonic CQ1011N any help would be appreciated

[edjsage]

Great instructable! I'm trying to find a way to get it to work for my stock Blaupunkt CD player in my 2003 Ford Focus. I've taken everything apart and I can't seem to make heads or tails of what I'm looking at in regard to R and L OUT. If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

[edjsage]

OK. Update: I think I've found a wiring diagram for this board. Would TA+ and FA+ be my L and R audio? There's a good chance I'm just being dumb, but it seems like it's possible as I don't see anything else labeled as L or R (besides LGND and LP). If anyone has some insight I would sure appreciate it! Thanks!

[alterator]

send me the pic to elerepair at gmail dot com
if you didn´t solve it yourself.

[MANinYOURhouse]

I have a D model DB1200 am fm receiver and it doesn't have any solder points labeled Rout, lout, or agnd. can someone tell me what I should look for on this stereo?

[Yerboogieman]

Nice, i was wondering something like this.

[mikeklepacz]

It was way easier then I could have hoped for. F paying $200 for a new cd player with aux.

[Yerboogieman]

$200? Where are you shopping?

[ross33]

Go to wal mart got mine for under $80

[mikeklepacz]

By the time you buy a new stereo and then the controller to interface with the IPOD it's around 200 at former circuit city or best buy

[iamdarkyoshi]

or just get an amplifier and do something epic like this... my mp3 player has a radio built in anyway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3alz1C5VCIU&list=UUcPmrDt4jyjh5hSKiDxhIqg&index=10&feature=plcp

[Yerboogieman]

What controller? There's the cord that plugs into the front of the stereo, that you hook the player into. Then the line outs in the back for the amp for the speakers and subs...

[mikeklepacz]

yeah but if you want a good model that controls the mp3 player through the unit you have to pay a lot

[Yerboogieman]

Oh, yes, good point.

[JasonYMN]

Thank you so much :) i had a Sony xplod head unit that was missing the face plate and all it could do was play cd's without any control. Thanks to your instructable I was able to add an aux in and get much more functionality out of what i thought was useless head unit.

[netizenzero]

And the deck hacking continues. I just performed this on the factory deck in my 2002 Grand Prix. I had a little trouble at first (things were not labeled well), but I did some hunting around, and found a manual for a Mitsubishi CQ-JB6160 which contains the same CD unit as mine had (E-8746Ca), and figured out the wiring from there. Works like a charm. No static, no drop out, it's great!

Thanks for the idea and the tutorial, but to mikeklepacz, and to whoever originally thought the hack up!

[ddepaoli3]

Great tutorial! I've just finish it and works!
In my case on the pcb there are no indications about the channels so I searched for the DAC datasheet and i found the 4 outputs. This can be an hints for the people with my same problem.

[NaVoronda]

Thanks so much for this ible. I knew nothing about electronics but was able to finish in a few hours. It took longer to do the research and find the right places to solder (the circuit board from the factory deck wasn't labeled) than it did to wire the whole thing together.

[agamble]

Mike, it would be badass to record the inside of your car at 70 miles an hour and make a cd of that sound flipped 180 degrees out of phase. Play THAT cd at 70 miles an hour while your i pod is going, and BAM, you've got a ghetto rigged, cheap, noise cancellation cd/aux custom stereo setup!

[mikeklepacz]

HA!

[seba1685]

I've tried this with my 2001 Chevy Cavalier (original 2001 factory radio) and it distorted the sound coming from my ipod. Not like guitar distortion, more like bad audio quality that would be very jumpy in volume (you had to turn the car volume up all the way to be able to hear anything). I don't think it has anything to do with my soldering or the cables i used because i tried this twice with 2 different cables. any suggestions? note: images are of my first attempt. after soldering i covered in liquid electrical tape, then silicone sealant

[teejer]

You probably already checked this, but, I'd 1. get a ohmmeter & verify that that the Ground wire(s) you soldered to the board goes to the sleeve (ground) portion of the mini-plug. See picture in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS_connector for details on which parts of the mini plug are L , R and Ground (3, 2, & 1 resp). I think you could swap the L & R wires and be OK, but the Ground's gotta be right. 2. If that doesn't work, then I'd see if there was any other L, R & Grd connections on the board closer to the multi pin connector. Can't really see from your pix if there are traces in the board directly from the multi pin connector to your L, R & Grd solder points, but there should be. 3 Finally get a magnifying glass and check all solder points for solder balls that could short out.. Good luck.

[seba1685]

teejer, what can you make of this? as you can see, i tried soldering where it says LCH, RCH and AGND. where else on this board could i try soldering? the other picture shows you the kind of cable i'm using. the exposed copper wire is wound together and attached to GROUND, the wire inside the red cover is going to the RIGHT CHANNEL, the wire inside the white is going to the LEFT CHANNEL. Am i doing that correctly?

[teejer]

Seba1685, hopefully you got it to work, but if not, it really looks like you have the right solder points on the board and the right wires from the 3.5mm jack. It's probably a stretch, but my board and mikeklepacz's both said R OUT and L OUT instead of R CH and L CH, so maybe there's more solder points on the other side of the of the board (slim, but worth a look). Beyond that, again I'd just make sure you're not shorted out anywhere in the jack / wires or on the board. Good luck. FYI, mine's still sounding great after more than a year.