How To: Make an AUX input for FREE

I've had this mod setup in my car for a few years. A 2007 Mazda 6 with Bose. Its always worked great, minus the noise which I can look passed. I brought the car in for some unrelated service and ever since then the right channel doesn't have any vocals. It does have the instruments, but the left side is the only side with full spectrum audio and vocals. Any ideas? When I switch to radio or CD I still get full range on both sides. My plans are to change the wiring to the newer four wire setup as opposed to the three wire setup with the floppy drive cable. Ill update if that works, if anyone has any other ideas, I'm open to anything.
 
Since I know everyone was sitting on the edge of their seating waiting for an answer, I fixed it!
After switching from the three wire to four wire setup I found out my audio was in mono. On the three wire setup my right channel was out of phase. I must have switched my right channel and negative the last time I rewired my 3.5mm jack. I'm going to rewire the whole setup again skipping the computer cable and using the female d-pin terminals, no splicing and one connection from point A to point B, which I think is what messed me up this last time.
 
Hey guys. Just wanted to share my version of this mod.

I took a sub cable from an old circuit board and cut it so it fits well
  • GND
  • R
  • L
  • SIGNAL



I picked a 3.5 female input for this project



I drilled a hole and secured the input with hot glue



Result & final looking :



My needs for this mod :

  • keep the lighter door closed when wanted
  • no cable in front of the console
  • no disturbs when changing transmission levels
  • clean & clear render
  • this lets me plug an USB charger with a flexible cable and holder for my phone. I've also got a spring jack cable which is perfect for this context.

It works great. Sound quality is good as expected (Bose system)

Thank you for the tutorial.

Regards
 
Can someone please just come do this for me!!!! LOL Thank you though, I will try in hopes I don't completely mess this up!
 
hi guys.
i just saw this post and it was awesome.
But i have a little bit confusing about cable connection.
So, can anyone confirm for me, totally we make:
1/ a jumper between PIN 1 and PIN 13 - DONE.
2/ And Pin 3 for Right speaker, Pin 5 for Left speaker, and Pin 7 connect to "copper" wire of 3.5 headphone jack - DONE
----> is that clear?
Thank you so so much.
 
Hello,
I bought the cable in a store but it seems to me that #7and #13 are connected. I guess i should change that.

Mazda 3 bk 2003
tape/md radio

Best regrards,
Tr
 
Hey All,

For those of you with Hum / Noise issues (well everyone else actually also):
You should NOT be connecting the Audio Ground (i.e. the bare copper shield from the audio cable) to Pin number 7. This is a Signal Ground (i.e. for communications, not audio). The proper Ground for the Audio would be Pins 4 and 6 (Labelled RH- and LH- in various pictures in this thread).

So, the RH+ (Pin 3) and RH- (Pin 4) are the RIGHT AUDIO signal (+) and AUDIO ground (-)
and the LH+ (Pin 5) and LH- (Pin 6) are the LEFT AUDIO signal (+) and AUDIO ground (-)

Do not confuse the '-' or AUDIO Grounds with the chassis or power (12Volt) ground or the Signal ground - this is what is causing any humm.

Best way would be to tie the two AUDIO grounds together and to the SHIELD of your Audio cable.



I tried this method with a bluetooth device powered off the cigarette lighter, but there was some terrible buzz. After some experimentation, this is what worked:

Right signal from audio source connected to Pin 3
Left signal from audio source connected to Pin 5
Pin 4 and Pin 6 AND Pin 7 connected to the shield/ground from audio source.
Ground Loop Isolator in line between the source and the head unit.

Cheers for all the information in this and other threads.
 
Yes, all you are doing is adding an audio input to your radio.
This works with any device with a standard 1/8" audio output.
 
Hey Guys.
I hope someone here can help me with my issue here...
So I tried doing the mod on my 03 Mazda 6i but the TAPE/MD . As I was taking the head unit out, it seemed one of the wires touched the frame which caused the cd player not loading CDs and no sound what so ever. The display, the buttons, everything else in the headunit seemed to work properly except the (Single CD Player) not taking discs and no sound.
Any idea how to fix it? Thank you guys.
 
Thanks everyone for the instructions on how to do this. I just attempted this weekend since the dash was apart to replace the blower motor, and it seems to be working well! I used the separate L- and R- connections (pins 4 & 6 instead of 7) for the left & right channel grounds, and it sounds very clear regardless of whether the phone is charging or not. I also added a USB port connected to the cigarette lighter for charging, and a pocket where the blank panel/cassette player would otherwise live.

15%2B-%2B1

15%2B-%2B2

15%2B-%2B3

15%2B-%2B4

15%2B-%2B5

15%2B-%2B6

15%2B-%2B7

15%2B-%2B8
 
Can anyone please confirm that this works on the regular 6 (with non-bose), not the speed6. I'd hate to fry my unit (thought)
 
yes I was right "assuming" that the ground would be pin 14. :) Unfortunately i forgot to clean the lens physically so the only problem I had today morning was skipping cd during driving on not flat roads. Then I put a self-made lens cleaner and cleaned the laser. The disk never skips now, finds track much faster and keeps it. I want to try to write a blank CD with 2 tracks. The first 70 min silence and the second 5 or 10 minute silence tracks and put the last i.e. second track on repeat mode. In this case the second track would be written on the outer bigger radius part of the cd and I think it would be "easier" for the laser head to read data. I will give a try tomorrow and post my results. Also I modified my old Griffin Road Trip FM modulator and took Ipod lineout from it and it is charging and playing the same time holding my ipod in vertical position switched in sigarete lighter. Also when i turn off the engine, Ipod stops automatically.

In any case, I want to thank you for a BRILLIANT idea. The difference is HUUUUUUUUUGE. I have JBL sub with pioneer amp installed and it delivers MUCH better power via AUX rather from FM modulator.


EDIT: CANCEL THAT it worked just fine
A bit late to the game; but I recently acquired a decent 2004 Mazda 6, I'm attempting buba and Dragan's method at page 8 but mine has a Bose setup(no small side PCB):
Link to album with some more details
Top chassis:
ZQ3c1CR.jpg

Bottom PCB:
Z0UXBKX.jpg


So where do I solder my wires to? Do I assume 14 like you? This reference makes it more confusing: http://forum.mazda6club.com/car-electronics/138807-bose-wiring.html

Here's another reference: http://mazda-speed.com/faq/audio/

EDIT: I went ahead and soldered red/right to pin 15 on the lower PCB, ground to 14, and white/left to pin 13. Works like a charm, now to make blank CDs.
 
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I just spent half the day trying to do this. Lessons learned.
1. Don't use a headphone cable. They have Teflon, Kevlar, or whatever those strands are that refuse to get out of the way. And then you have to melt the enamel off the wires which never seems to burn off all the way. Use an extension cable or a thicker cable that came with PC speakers. They usually have 3 rubber coated wires LEFT, RIGHT and Shield (Bare).
2. Don't go back and forth between the picture of the radio and the wiring diagram. One is upside down and it will confuse the snot out of you. Especially since one is labeled 1234 and the other is ABCD.
3. Not sure why but when I pluged it in upside down my radio allowed media mode but had no audio. Not sure why that worked the way it did.
4. I wired RIGHT to 3(2C) and LEFT to 5(2E) and split the audio shield between 4(2D) and 6(2F) and left 2G empty. This resulted in the LEFT and RIGHT being out of phase with each other which doesn't make any audio or electrical sense at all. I moved the pin from 6(2F) to 7(2G) and everything sounded fine.
5. The shortest most difficult connector to plug in is the radio cable. the other one is for AC I think.
6. I was delightfully surprised that the radio remembers different volume levels for each source.
7. To pull the pins out of the CD audio cables a safety pin works best. It's sharp strong and wont slice your finger open.
8. I soldered the headphone cable directly to the pin. I hate soldering two wires toghether it never holds well. I used an old IDE drive to hold the pins still while I soldered.
9. IDE cables don't fit. The pins are distanced just slightly too small to just lop off the first 16 pins of a floppy cable. (that was the first hour of my frustration)

No one has posted pictures of their completed headphone adapters so here is mine. https://www.dropbox.com/s/msncn5gzpkcap3x/IMG_6390.JPG
IMG_6390.JPG


I flipped the diagram, duplicated it, and added numbers to help clarify which pins are which. This orientation is with the radio and "FM75Ω" right side up. https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0pbjxyccqph453/auxcon2.gif
auxcon2.gif
 
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Well crap I wish I would have known... Actually in looking at the pic it looks like they tied vehicle ground to audio ground then to pin 13. That's weird.

Hi guys

I will like to know if this procedures will work for my 2002 mazda 626 stereo.
 
hi, i'm using the ratshack connector. can someone highlight on how to jumper pin 1-13 using the connector.

thanks
 
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