Adding A 3.5mm AUX Jack To My Factory Stereo

"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon)
08/06/2020 at 21:07 • Filed to: Audio, I refuse to be dragged into the 21st century

This has been something I wanted to try for quite a while. I’d been making do with one of the cassette tape adapters and I was just not thrilled with the fuzzy audio quality.

Finished product first of course

So I did something similar to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ToyotaNation thread where the author soldered his aux cable straight to the circuit board of the radio. Except I wanted mine to be removable and I really didn’t feel like soldering directly to the board. So, I ordered a cable from Amazon with questionable reviews and quality designed to go between the factory radio, a cd changer, and the navigation. But, all I really cared about was that it had plugs that matched, and extra wires for me to cut.

Sorry, No in-progress pics, but here’s my finished product.

This process was fairly simple. Right audio from the 3.5mm cable to the right channel off the cd player splitter. Same for left and the signal ground. I used !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! guide from PinoutGuide (which was fortunately correct) , soldered it all together with several feet of extra wire in the middle because the donor cable I hacked up had some serious length issues.

I chose to run my wire out of the glove box so I could tuck it out of the way when not in use, accomplishing my goal of adding an AUX input without being able to see it when I wasn’t using it. At this point we’re almost done but now comes the real hard part. Finding a blank CD. My generation doesn’t really believe in physical media so I wasn’t initially sure what I was looking for. Turns out they’re these little plastic things that people used to store data on.

I found a computer that still runs and has a CD drive. What are the odds?

So grab a random mp3 file that claims to be 32 minutes of silence. Burn the disc, throw it in the CD changer, and you’re good to go. I do have a disclaimer to make here: My factory 3 disc changer doesn’t like this file at all. It’ll play it, but refuses to play more than 18 seconds of it. So I just can’t leave any other CDs in it.

Could I have just gotten a plug and play double DIN with bluetooth, a USB port, Android Auto, and a fancy touchscreen? I mean yeah I guess. However, that’s not as fun. And since the factory radio made it 20 years, I figured it was only fair to leave it in.

DISCUSSION (11)

Future Heap Owner > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
08/07/2020 at 03:31

Man after my own heart! I like just putting a low-key AUX in and leaving the rest stock.

I should really finish doing this in my car. Dang fiber optics...

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Future Heap Owner
08/07/2020 at 08:44

I'd like to add an Arduino at some point in the future.

avalonian > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
08/07/2020 at 10:16

I remember frys selling a kit for like 50 bucks, which did all of this on pretty much any car, I need to find it and add it to my moms honda pilot. It came with adapters diagram and pretty much everything.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > avalonian
08/07/2020 at 10:31

I didn’t find any kits that weren’t mysterious black boxes with bad reviews. They all also seemed available on Wish and that sketched me out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Fry’s to be honest.

HammerheadFistpunch > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
08/07/2020 at 11:59

I’ve been wanting to do this for the Azera, but there is no way without replacing it as far as I can work out. And unless I can do it for less than $100 Im not going to bother. Though I am getting pretty sick of my Cd’s already

avalonian > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
08/07/2020 at 12:51

Gotchya, yeah they are commonish in Georgia. For my 05 accord, I went to Crutchfield and they have a bluetooth module that plugs into the Cd player. I never use it anyway. So now I can bluetooth and stream to the whole car with good quality.

avalonian > HammerheadFistpunch
08/07/2020 at 12:52

Try Crutchfield they might have a bluetooth module that plugs into the CD player.

HammerheadFistpunch > avalonian
08/07/2020 at 12:53

They do not. They have it for the year after mine, but nothing for my year

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > HammerheadFistpunch
08/07/2020 at 14:26

I got lucky because while my cd player sits right under the radio (and they share a bracket) it still plugs in just like the trunk cd changers. You maybe could solder directly to the board but thats kinda sketchy.

Future Heap Owner > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
08/08/2020 at 13:11

Nice! What do you want the Arduino to do?

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Future Heap Owner
08/08/2020 at 21:41

Ideally, I’d be able to add bluetooth and then having a headphone jack on my phone wouldn’t be such an issue.