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

Has anyone tried this on the 1st gen? I can't seem to find any data on this anywhere.

As I type this, my truck is sitting outside with the center dash pulled apart. I found similar contact points on the bottom board of the CD player. Wired in my 3.5mm input cable and plugged everything back in just enough to test it.

Good news is that the head unit still works like it's supposed to (I didn't screw it up, yet). Bad news is that when I plug in my phone playing music, it just adds noise to the CD that is playing but the phone's music is still playing through the phone's speaker. Like it's not even trying to push it through the cable.

So close here, just need a little input. (no pun intended)

...I'm posting this anyway but the thought went through my head that perhaps my ground wasn't as good as I thought it was. I got over zealous to test it out. I'm sure my cable ground to the deck chassis is fine but I didn't bolt the deck to the dash, therefore not grounding it properly. BRB...

 

Nope, wasn't it. But I did just see notice the post about the Galaxy S III not working with this mod. Guess which phone I was testing this with...

*Grabbing every portable player in the house and going back out for more testing.*

 

I hope it works out for ya!

 

Yup, it was the GS3. Nexus 7 worked fine.

However, as I finalize everything tomorrow and put it back together, I'll look into the 5-wire jack solution. That sounds a lot safer. I'm not interested in toasting the head unit or my N7.

Thanks for that, Backinblack03.

 

I hope you can come up with something, cuz I feel like I am jacking off my phone whenever I get desperate enough to try to make it work.

 

Thanks, we're on the road to recovery.
I've taken a few photos along the way so that I might follow up to help out some of the 1st gen guys. So far, it looks pretty damn similar. I hope to find the 5-wire solution tomorrow.

 

I wonder if you use one of those Rent-a-Shack I mean, Radio Shack inline-headphone-audio-boosters if it would help with the S3 issue?

I'm sure the 5-wire solution is the real answer though.

 

Did any of you guys check out pscrev20's thread? I believe his method used the 5 wire jack.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/au...stock-head-unit-overrides-fm.html#post5324884

 

Yes, I can't find the related resistors on my deck. Now I'm trying to find the audio input to the pre-amp circuit to use a 5-wire audio jack. Like Backinblack03 suggests. Perhaps it's the same thing but I don't know enough about it. It's starting to look like I might be stuck with the 3-wire setup for now.

 

Yeah I hear ya, I'm a mechanical engineer with basic circuit knowledge, not an electrical engineer. So while I understand what they are saying I don't think I could be much help unless I actually try to do it myself.

 

...And I understand the electronics, but don't have the degree...! As soon as I have some free time to have a look, I will put together photos and instructions for the 1st Gen. radios. Or at least the radio that I have...

 

Actually to take this mod and make it like mine would not be overly difficult (except you will still need a cd of some sort in the player). You would just need to removed the 2 wires that are coming from the CD unit to the point you all have been soldering to and wire them the constant side of the jack and the others from the output to the place the CD unit wires were soldered. I didn't take my CD player apart to verify this, but there should be a wired connection somewhere that you can do this.

See Picture below and wire like this:

1. Ground
2. Right to Head unit
3. Right from CD Unit
4. Left from CD Unit
5. Left to Head unit

 

I am working at my CD unit and I am having a hard time finding where I can break the circuit to add the jack like you did in your 5pin mod.

 

Good news for the Samsung galaxy 3 guys that want to use their phone with this mod! It can be done by using a variation of pscrev20's 5 pin audio jack mod.

Looking on the CD deck where the 3 wire mod was originally done, locate the two components labeled "L1 and L2."


Using a very fine tipped soldering iron and solder wick remove these two components. I ended up throwing these away. (They read 1 ohm on an ohm meter, and I tried to solder these in line with the out put wires on the jack. But that didn't work like I planned.) So I just omitted these and have had no problems.

Pins 2 and 5 get wired to the terminal closest to the plug, pins 3 and 4 get wired to the terminal farthest away from the plug. With pin 1 getting connected to ground.

With this done correctly, when you plug in the aux cable into the jack it disconnects the CD player output completely whether you have anything else plugged into the aux cable or not.

I think the galaxy s3 would see the output from the CD player and not recognize the deck as an output.

I hope this helps out!

 

You guys really should be using shielded audio wire... Cut up some old headphones that have been sitting in a drawer having long lost their foam covers...

 

I used a headphone extension and cut that up.

 

Omitted because they got jacked up and it ended up working anyway or because 1 ohm was so insignificant that it doesn't matter?

Not trying to bash, it's just that many of us that might be willing to try these mods are taking our own risks and don't know the reliability of the source.

Sorry again, just trying to clarify. I think it's just written a little funny but if nothing is plugged into the aux port, the CD player will still work, right?

Thanks for you time and effort on this one.

 

The resistors were omitted cuz I couldn't keep the wires attached to the wee little tiny things long enough to put some shrink tube on them. And frankly I was getting impatient. I am sure if you wanted and had enough forethought to buy some resistors from the rshack to replace them it would be beneficial.

I will admit that I know just enough about electronics to be dangerous so hopefully someone that honestly knows enough about that stuff can chime in and say if leaving them out is a huge mistake.

And you are correct, if nothing is connected to the jack, it plays the CD player.

I honestly think I was more lucky than good when it came to doing this mod. I just got desperate to not be stuck with listening to radio or the same CD's over and over

 

I'm right there with you on that! Your mod looks good though. I might pull my deck back out soon to look at the feasibility of doing this on my 1st gen.

 

At this point, I've done the 3-wire mod to my 1st gen and routed the aux port to the lower portion of the center dash. Right above the cigarette lighter, mounted vertically. That's so if I end up going with a aftermarket deck later, the aux port will be out of sight.

Should have posted these pics a week ago but I've been busy.

In order of photos:
1: front of my stock 1st gen deck
2: after removing faceplate, top, bottom and back metal plates. Remove CD deck and flip it over
3: locate the LCH & RCH contact points, remove ribbon cable to avoid damage
4: (sry the images don't show more incremental steps) solder LCH & RCH, secure ground under screw head, tape it and secure cable with zip-tie
5: another angle of my handiwork
6: route cable out the deck. I found that the hole in the RH side was unblocked when reinstalling deck back into the dash.
7: I also secured the exiting cable with another zip-tie. Make sure to reconnect the ribbon cable for the CD deck as you put it all back together.
8: I ended up mounting a port instead of using the pig tail. I chose this location so that if the deck gets replaced later I won't be left with a unsightly worthless hole in the dash. (The white cable is for another project and temporary)
9: just the sticker on the top of the deck, for reference

Must be on CD input and have a disc playing. As discussed in previous posts, you can get bleedthrough noise from the disc if it's louder than your aux input. Also if the aux is silent for a few seconds you might get blasted with a very staticy CD track and it's generally unpleasant. Since I use the Aux input 90%+ of the time. I downloaded a free program called Audacity and created an hour long silent mp3. Burned that to a disk, throw it in and set it to repeat. This allows me to pause my music without having to turn down the volume or turn off the deck. The most you get is a little 'pop' as it switches between the CD and Aux.