Audio signal sensing switch for car stereo

[Lost Dog]

Hello all,

I'm new to all of this but I figure I have to start somewhere. I have no problems pulling out a soldering iron and following directions but I don't have the background to get from A to B.

I've got a 6 Disk Rockford Fosgate stereo in my 03' Xterra. This just happened to be one of the two years that this stereo has no easy way to hook an ipod or other external device to it. I'd love to hook my old nano up to it and have music rather than have a car filled with disks.

Some enterprising individual on an Xterra forum found a way to approach this by tapping in to the CD wiring and adding a switch to go between CD and AUX input. Link below:

**broken link removed**

I'd like to keep this as clean as possible and not have to mount a toggle switch in the vehicle (if possible). Is there some sort of switch that would sense the audio input when an Ipod is attached? This way I could mount everything behind the dash and run one input line to the console between the seats. When I plug the Ipod in it automatically initiates the switch and I'm in musical bliss.

I'd like to do this rather than purchase a different head unit with AUX-in. The cost of that would be greater than my desire to have this working... I've got steering wheel radio controls and don't want to lose those or buy a $60 conversion kit for a new head unit (I'm aware the controls will be useless while playing from the AUX-in but I'd like to have them for radio use).

If you need any other info please let me know. I'd love to get this figured out!

Thanks,

Neil

 

[Sceadwian]

You could just cut the wires that lead from the CD out to the car stereo input and attach 1/8th inch phono jack socket to it, then you can feed that through 'over the counter' splitters to anything you want.

 

[crutschow]

You can buy a stereo jack that has 2 SPST contacts (see https://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=161-3551 for example). When you plug in the Ipod it breaks the connection from the internal CD and connects to the Ipod. No other switch or relay needed.

 

[Lost Dog]

You can buy a stereo jack that has 2 SPST contacts (see https://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=161-3551 for example). When you plug in the Ipod it breaks the connection from the internal CD and connects to the Ipod. No other switch or relay needed.

That is an interesting idea... It's a mechanical contact, correct? If this was behind the dash in the back of the deck I'd have to fish my way back there each time I wanted to remove the ipod. Still, it's a bit closer to what I wanted.

 

[Sceadwian]

So mount a nice looking connector in the dash and fish the wire through the console. As long as you have the repair manual for your car creating a phono jack output on a cars dash is trivial with a rotary tool and some good glue, should look stock.

 

[Torben]

Or if you don't smoke, you could mount the jack inside the ashtray. . .er. . ."coin tray" on modern vehicles, I guess and just slide it open to access it when you need it. If the jack is still off to one side you still have room for coins, too.


Torben

 

[Sceadwian]

Nice signature Torben, now I'm gonna have to change mine =)