FLSL55

Bump

bighernan

2000 clk 430 -- Did this yesterday and let me say - WoW! The sound is amazing - much clearer than cassette interface. I had been putting this off for a couple of months now, but the cassette noise level was just too much for me with the cassette adapter to my ipod.

One thing though. looks clean as a whistle. thanks cryptonic and everyone else. it took me about 4 hours to do start to finish (including trip to radio shack to purchase $10 soldering tool). I practiced soldering on an old computer motherboard i had lying around.

Now that i dont need my cd changer at all, any takers? Its complete with the 6 disc magazine. pm me.

btw - tape is stuck in there now - it fools the head unit into thinking there is a real cassette playing in there.

Stiggs

Man....this looks like a big undertaking for a guy like me that isn't good at stuff like soldering and cutting traces.....by the way....how did you cut the traces??
The step by step pics by lovin_my_C230K make it look real do-able.
Where do the wires that you soldered on to pins 1 and 3 end up going??

FLSL55

Cryptnotic,

I want to personally thank you for taking the time to post this work-up.

My wife’s i-pode sounds amazing and it's all thanks to you and Eric.

You are a true gentleman and an asset to this community!

Eric,

I would not have been able to do this without the amazing Macro shots you provided and host. Thanks for taking the time to Photoshop the instructions on the pictures themselves!

Wonderful!!

-James

P.S. Red is right and white or black is left. I think they are switched in one of Eric’s pictures.

orb

I made this work on my audio 30 but i do not sure of my pin choice. It sounds ok but it seems there is more than a positive and negative for each channel(left and right).
Also, i had to leave the motors connected , when i disconnected the grounds on the motors the radio would not go into tape mode. SO i just broke the reel of tape in the cassette so it never comes to an end and flips sides, the motor spins and spins , but i hear no noise.
anybody else perform this on an audio 30. What pins do you use?

Thanks
Oliver

orb

I called Becker of North America to try to get a schematic of the radio (audio 30)- for pin choice and the service guy i talked to said they tap into the main radio board with their aux in. I asked where on the board and he got real nasty and started acting like an A**hole. He said i should send it in and let them do it. Right.

naisan

You guys inspired me to hack my 1692. That failed, but I was able to grab an old Alpine CDE-7831 head unit and successfully hack that.

Briefly, the becker 1692 unit has very different innards, with easy to find locations to jack in the left and right aux channels. What was not so easy was trying to disconnect the motors while still fooling the control module into thinking that the tape is still running well. Instead, the unit thinks that the tape has stopped running, flips the solenoid for switching the tape sides twice, then gives up on the tape playing operation. In the meantime, you can hear your aux source playing 4 times as it fades in and out when the tape sides switch and fade the source selector.

the Alpine was a different story. The CDE-7831 is pretty old (say 7 years or so) and has a modular CD player mechanism that "plugs in" to the mainboard once you have the head unit disassembled. The plugs contain the source L-in and R-in pins on the interface, and are clearly marked on the underside of the mainboard. So it was a simple matter:
1. Cut the RCA cable, ground it, and solder into those contacts
2. reassemble and mount in the W210 (luckily it was plug-n-play for me, with nothing more than snipping wires, connecting the right ones to the alpine harness, and voila)
3. Burn a CD with a 60-minute silent song on it. (this was the hard part - coming up with that)

This way I still have CD capability in the head unit, but with that special CD set to cycle over and over again I have a 3-second silence every hour when listening to the aux cable. The alpine control/fader chip (made by philips) only routes the CD source (pins 16 and 17 on the chip) when a CD track is actually playing, and since this one chip controls fading, balance, and volume, the CD interface was the most downstream place to tap into the unit while retaining capability. So even in between tracks it won't amplify the source, hence the blank CD with one very long silent track.

Good luck hardware hackers, and thanks to Cryptnotic for giving me the required bravery!

Naisan

embee

Hi All,

This morning, I carried out a modified version of Cryptonic's modifications aided by lovin_my_c230k's photographs.

I did make a few changes that allow an aux input while retaining the use of the tape deck.

This is possible by using a 1/8 inch headphone jack for the aux input known as a "closed circuit" jack.

When a plug is insterted into the jack, the jack is sourced for the signal. When there is no plug in the jack, the tape deck is sourced for the signal. No external switches.

If anyone is interested, I can put together a better write-up.

Thanks for all the great ideas!

Todd

fds

embee,

I would be interested to hear further details of the "closed circuit" jack method.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to do the mod discussed in this thread on an 2001 e55 Audio 30 (model BE6003). My unit tape board does not look like the one for the W203. Would love to hear from someone that has a mod a unit like mine.

fds

vivaitalia

SUCCESS - and I get to keep my tape functionality

First of all, thanks to

- Cryptnotic for his write up (original thread: https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...threadid=24707)
- lovin_my_C230K for his photos (photo link: http://66.15.182.201/w203aux/)
- embee (aka, Todd) for his closed-circuit suggestion...this retains the tape deck's functionality with the AUX input.

Here are photos from Todd:






Here are my Photos:

* Radio Shack closed-circuit stereo jack *
(link: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search)

* my circuit board *


* my stereo jack connected to wires *


* my jack connected to the back of the ash tray *


* my ash tray finished product *



NOTES:

* Find a better closed-circuit stereo jack than the one from radio shack...not very good quality, gets the job done, but inserting the male end of the cord into the female end of the closed-circuit jack will make static noise (if stereo turned on). Sometimes bumping the cord will make a static noise.

* Get sheilded cable. I used security shielded 22/6 (gauge/number of wires) cable from Home Depot, surprisingly, raido shack didn't have it.

* I chose to put it in the ash tray b/c I can hide the cables and my ipod neatly there, gives me quick access to the ipod to change tracks and close to the cirgarette lighter to charge when needed

* I used a sharp "exacto knife" to cut the traces.

Good luck....

wifeys240

Does anyone know what happened to the pictures from vivaitalia's install? I am planning to do this mod but would like to see how we connected the wires to the closed-circuit jack.

vivaitalia

sorry, trying to resolve the links on my website. If you want the photos email me at info@myitems4sale.com
John

wifeys240

Thanks for the help!

Moon-Coupe

Just got done installing this mod on my audio 30 and it works great so far.
Many thanks to Cryptonic and all others that contributed to this thread. Now I can hear my Visteon HD Zoom (backlighting matches dash color) and iPod in all their audio splendor.

simppa80

How this work with audio 10 / CD? What I should do?

CubanCorona

I just finished this mod (with the closed circuit jack to retain tape functionality) on my W203 C240.

I mounted the jack in the compartment directly below the head unit--looks pretty sharp.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.

sghokie

I just did the mod finally.
I have been wanting to for a long time but finally got around to it today.
Removing the vents were the most difficult part of the entire process.
I accidently pulled the outer trim ring off around the vents and it made it a lot easier.
In the process I broke a few of the clips that held it in place.
Also another pit fall was that I left the screws in behind the vent which one promptly fell behind the radio when I pulled out the vents. Luckily I was able to find it later on.
Also notable the clips holding the radio trim at the bottom are metal flip clips.
The ground of the ipod in can be attached to a screw on the heat sink.
I used the open circuit radio shack jack in my install.
I also picked up the $12 radio shack brand 6ft 1/8" cable.
It was really easy to work with. I cut off about 2 feet to use on the radio mod, then resoldered the end back on the rest of the cable so I could have the ipod cable.
Also one more thing, when I removed the wires from the back of the radio trim, there was one 6 pin wire harness. I didn't realize it when I removed it, but there are 2 identical 6 pin sockets that it can plug in to. So I guessed one and all the controls worked so I guess I got it right. So make sure you check that if you are going to do the mod yourself and note which hole it goes in.

mikeb10039

Can anyone confirm, or deny, if this mod will work on a 2004 C-230?

TIA, Mike

lberning

Todd,

I have a 2003 C240, is there any way you can send me pics and detailed instructions on how to do this? I like to read over things very carefully before performing hacks like this. ANy help you can give would be appreciated. I can be reached at lberning@gmail.com. Thanks!

xmodrelic

Will this work on my 2000clk320?

And while using the closed circuit jack how do you "turn on" The input, by that I mean do you need a tape in and hit play for it to enable the signal from you ipod to pass through? In other words do I need to hear the tape motors going to listen to my ipod? If so is the signal interrupted when the tap runs out?

If I prefer to just kill the tape playback for a consistent connection, I need to leave a tape in before disassembly, kill the Pos lead to the tape motors, cut the 2 traces, and then just wire my RCA's to iPod r/l input as labeled above?

eesjunin

This is Great!
Has anyone tried to do the following:
1) do the splice as above and
2) instead of blank tape insert tape adapter
and then run the IPOD multi function cable from it( this one)


The Reason i want to do it that way is that, first of all the tape deck is useless; and second is that my phone has a free online radio that i like. I know you cant listen to both at the same time, but i can have Ipod at anytime with charging it and when i want i can listen to the phone...anyone sees a problem with this configuration? Thanks!

eesjunin

so here is an update of what i did...
i didnt feel comfortanble in cutting the traces, neither did i know that the tape adapter would work with the traces cut...so i ran a female 1/8th phone jack from the iPod cable above into the empty storage space below the stereo, and i ran the 1/8th male line from the tape adapter to the same space.....
Now if i want to run iPod i just connect female to male...if i want anything else, like friends iPhone or my Blackberry i just take the male 1/8" and plug it right in.
The way i plugged that iPod cable is i took the iTrip apart and the housing of the cable end, and just swapped with liitle mods...will post more pics monday

slammer111

Somebody should sticky this thread. Thanks to Cryptnotic for posting this thing!

Being an Engineer, I've taken the courtesy to "clean up" certain parts of this upgrade. I wanted to do this mod with minimal damage to the radio. Reversibility is key for all my mods.

I bought a 3.5mm "plug" to RCA cable from a local components store. Measured out about 20cm and snipped the cable.

Instead of weaving the cable on the outside, I fed the cable in through a couple of holes on the bottom.

slammer111

For the Aux in jack, I picked the upper right portion of the back of the tray under the tape deck. Why did I pick that specific spot? There is a large flat tab/surface that can be used to secure the plug. I also took some 60-grit sandpaper to the surface of that tab to increase adhesion.

I drilled a 5/16" hole with the edge of the hole just touching the tab, and amazingly, my plug "snapped" into place so tightly I couldn't even remove it to glue. To secure this piece, I glued (Gorilla Glue) the rubber housing of the jack to this tab after slicing off part of the housing with a hobby knife to create a large flat surface. Be sure to roughen up the tab with sandpaper as well.

I used epoxy to secure the wires at the holes going into the radio so they wouldn't chafe over time.

Here's the finished result looking into the tray as well. Very clean.

slammer111

To solder the wires, I first removed that ribbon cable. It pulls out after you loosen the connector by pulling 2 white tabs towards the top of the radio. For some reason I could not remove the tape assembly (crazy tight screws!), so the soldering was done in situ. This is a 2 person job unless you have 3 hands.

After removing that grey metal piece (which is a huge heat sink btw), be sure not to touch this one component that has white thermal paste all over it. I got this stuff everywhere, ick. If you accidentally make a mess, don't worry too much as the stuff isn't conductive so you won't short anything. Yes, I tested it with a multimeter.

As the OP said, White goes to Pin 1, Red to Pin 3.

These pins are TINY. Use the finest tip you can get your hands on. I made sure my wires only had maybe 0.5mm sticking out of the sheath; any more and you risk shorting something out. Of course, I did strip out the outer (black) sheath and twisted a nice length of "ground" wire as well. This gets secured to the outside of the case.

After soldering, I covered the solder points with epoxy. Ghetto but effective way to electrically insulate your work, and to also reduce the risk of future damage!

I then wound my ground cable around that screw, and added some solder to the end of the copper to keep the ends from fraying.

In the 2nd picture, you can see where I ran the red and white wires as well.