Cheap Mod: DIY AUX Input in a 2005-2008 Factory Head Unit

I picked up a 6 disc non-JBL player that I am gonna do this to. Someone else botched the job and burned off the pads.. I'll get a picture up here later. I think I can just put in a jumper wire to fix that.

 

Just did this mod today with the help of my brother...sound is great, no engine noise when I charge my iPhone. Thanks everyone for all their input on it...

 

just have a quick question. How did everyone connect the actual aux plug to their location? cause i want to do an Aux plug and USB plug b/c my new stereo has them located them in the back

 

Hey, thanks a ton for this one. Worked great, and the audio sounds awesome.

 

where did all the pictures go to on the first post?

 

The photo's are hosted at http://photo-hosting.winsoftmagic.com. I can move them to TW, might take me a day or two to get to it. I don't know why they are not loading for you since they load for me just fine. I have had a few people mention that they are not loading so I will move them when I can. In the mean time, check and make sure you are not blocking the host website. I know at my old office it would not load anything from photobucket or any other picture hosting website.

 

perfect. thanks for the heads up man. ya it wasnt working on my iphone or my office. maybe on my home laptop. but if not im sure i can figure it out with the link.

thanks for the write up man! +1


edit: and now it is working... haha wierd

 

I finally put aside a whole two minutes to join this forum to thank you (and your sources) for putting this clear DIY together. It has been my favorite mod that I've done thanks to all you guys, and it was only $3!!

 

Right on. There are some really great mods on this site. I cant count the number of times I have got help from this form.

 

Well, i got my hopes up with all these success stories of people with minimal solder experience much like myself so i tried it and somehow i lost the little 'LCH' dot on my board. I have no sound in my left speaker in my truck now and have no idea how to fix this, gotta use the radio for now i guess . Any suggestions on how to fix?

 

See if you can follow the little path on the circuit board back further and soldering on a prexisting soldered joint. It's been a long time since I did mine so I can't remember exactly what's there. just get some solder pre stuck (tin) the end on your wire and work fast on the board. Holding a lot of heat on the board will roast the conductor going through the board

 

just got a Samsung galaxy S3 through work. Good thing is the phone was free, bad thing is it doesn't work with this mod phone works through my home so and every other vehicle I've tried, so the must be some other connection or sensor that's needed. It was fun while it lasted!

 

I noticed the same prob with my s3. I kinda died inside when it wouldn't work. And I haven't really had a chance to mess with it much though.

 

Weird, try downloading another music playing app.

 

If I may make some suggestions to this thread...

It appears that the photos show 3-wire audio jacks, and soldering right onto the existing CD driver output to the input of the amplifier circuit. In the electronics world, you almost never want to do that. Bridging outputs together with not separation may eventually damage one of the sources. Hopefully it's the external player and not the CD driver. What you really want to do is find the audio input to the pre-amp circuit and use a 5-wire audio jack. You would interrupt the left and right channels to the pre-amp and route that to the jack. If nothing is plugged into the jack, the audio passes through and all is normal. If something IS plugged into the jack, the original source is disconnected and the external source is passed through to the pre-amp regardless of what input source is selected on the head unit.

Also, a LOT of your noise issues are going to be picked up by the unshielded, solid-core wire shown in many of the photos. You REALLY want to use stranded core, shielded auto wire for this. You'll want to ground the shield of the wire as close to the circuit board as you can. Sometimes you can file a bit of the radio chassis and make a solderable ground point. Make sure the ground makes it all the way up to the jack, and be sure the jack is not grounded to anything metal with it's mounting.

I'm planning on adding an aux. jack to my '03 radio soon. When I do, I'll post up pics and instructions as well...

 

Where do you pick up such said 5 wire input jack?

 

Sweet keep us updated and if you don't mind, let us know where we can find these things

 

Mostly I tear apart discarded electronics and save useful parts. Otherwise, for this one, search for '5 pin headphone jack' on ebay. There's literally hundreds of them...

 

Three music application isn't the problem, it has something to do with how the phone is sending the truck stereo. I can have the auxiliary cable plugged into the phone and the little headphone icon appears. It disappears as soon as I plug the other end into the stereo. I've been able to get it to work, I'll have to play the music on my phone, cable plugged into stereo then plug it takes into the phone, it started playing out one speaker, I then plug it in all the way and it comes out both speakers as normal. Bad thing is if I skip a song, get a text message or phone call (basically any audio interruption) it quits working and I have to do the process over again. Still looking into possible fixes

 

Odd...