Auxiliary Audio Input Retrofit (Questions...)

I was looking for an AUX solution for my 99' 540i with Nav+Tv+10 Speaker DSP and found this forum and articles - wonderful!

I would like to do the same for my 540i, but instead of having the aux socket in the front of the car I would like it in the boot so I can connect my Amateur Radio equipment. Is there a way of installing this modification in the boot area? I would have thought it would be easier as I have full access to the cables in the boot and in the AV Stack on the left side of the boot.

Does anybody know which cable I should attack to attach this fly-lead to?

Regards

Richard Clafton
99' 540i Silver

As a related question, does anybody have a copy of the audio wiring harness schematics for 540i? I would be able to work out the connections required from that.

Regards

Richard

Guess what Paul, I was so intrigued with your discovery, and now I'm more interested, becuase when I rang up BMW Sydney, Alto BMW, and Sylvania BMW, they all wanted $150 for the wire (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

This excludes "installation"!!!!!

Anyway, I have a MY2002 318i, (face lifted), but build date says OCT2001. I WONDER if mine will work?? I dismantled my radio to discover it has the correct "jack" to install the wire, i wonder if anyone has done this on a BMW Business CD?

Thanks guys
A

Originally Posted by nitram_luap

A couple of reasons I made my own:

- The list price for this is about $50 in the USA (this is based on online BMW parts sites) so I can safely double that for here (ie. about $100 AUD)...
- It can't be obtained easily in Australia, nor can they give me a price on it. All they say is that the part number is correct...
- It wasn't too difficult or time consuming and I enjoyed the challenge
- The fact that BMW charge even $25 USD for a part which would cost less than $2 is insulting. It should be a standard feature given the simplicity.

Paul

Originally Posted by atlau

Guess what Paul, I was so intrigued with your discovery, and now I'm more interested, becuase when I rang up BMW Sydney, Alto BMW, and Sylvania BMW, they all wanted $150 for the wire (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

This excludes "installation"!!!!!

Anyway, I have a MY2002 318i, (face lifted), but build date says OCT2001. I WONDER if mine will work?? I dismantled my radio to discover it has the correct "jack" to install the wire, i wonder if anyone has done this on a BMW Business CD?

Thanks guys
A

Hi A,

It should work. The actual wiring harness that you need to create only differs (if at all) in the plug that goes into the cars wiring harness. The resistors & capacitors are the same - quite literally about $5 of gear from an electronics shop!

Let me know how you go! Good luck.

Paul
I finished a 12 hour drive last night with my MP3 player happily charging in the glovebox & playing through my AUX in on my stereo

Hey thats awesome what you did

I wanted to do the same, but i have a 2003 build non-nav system

is it the same plug to the headunit?


nice work!

Hi, I'm trying to do this same retrofit myself, but for the life of me I can't seem to remove the air vents. And it's hard to get a grip on those things. How did you get yours out so easily?

Thanks

Originally Posted by tehkao

Hi, I'm trying to do this same retrofit myself, but for the life of me I can't seem to remove the air vents. And it's hard to get a grip on those things. How did you get yours out so easily?

Thanks

Firstly, make sure you have removed the two screws which hold the vents in place (near the bottom edge). Then it is just a matter of wiggling it out - it makes a horrible clicking/grinding sound as the clip slowly comes out and it requires a fair bit of force - this is normal.

Paul

I guess my vent is stuck in harder than usual or something, since no amount of wiggling seems to loosen it.

Oh well, there's always the Blitzsafe adapter.

Originally Posted by tehkao

I guess my vent is stuck in harder than usual or something, since no amount of wiggling seems to loosen it.

Oh well, there's always the Blitzsafe adapter.

Try pulling one side more than the other, then alternate, and see-saw it out...

Other than that, I'm out of ideas!

Paul Martin
Australia

Can anyone help me out on this??

Im trying to hook the AUX Cable up, followed the instructions above to a T but im working on a different head unit to you guys (standard Business CD player)

After spending a fun hour or 2 taking the trim and head unit out, im presented with 10 numbered pins, which pins do i connect the L+ R+ and GND- to? is it 4 - 3 - 10?

Below is a pic of my delimmer

Any help is much appreciated

Cheers

After a few hrs of searching for the right parts and soldering it all together, its working great

Some tips on making the cable

Get the exact same ceramic capacitors as in the image above

Make sure the resistor is on the head unit side of the capacitors

Connect the pins as below

Pin number 8 is R+
Pin number 9 is L+
Pin number 4 is GND

Sound quality is great, nothing like watching movies/playing music on ya laptop in a car with a nice sound system.

I just installed the AUX cable for a fun afternoon. I'm using my Pocket PC & Windows Media player for the input. Sound is great, but the volumn is weak vs the FM radio and CD. Are you aware of anyway to increase the AUX input volumn to match the other inputs?

While you're in AUX mode, just press those radio button numbers 1-6 to adjust the input gain...the the higher number being more gain. This is at least how it works on the X5...so give that a try!

I did try that but it didn't seem to work. I have an appointment at Long Beach BMW tomorrow to see if other options might be available. Don't know if the Bluetooth transceiver uses the aux input as well. I'll let you know.

Right, this thread needs more love ...

Followed the OP's instructions, took an afternoon to do it all but that includes the running around.

If, like me and the OP, you live in Oz and it'll cost you $250 to get a simple Aux In, you're well better off putting it together. I was able to do this with little to no electronics experience (I only learnt how to solder yesterday) and the only exceptional tools required were small hands (thanks to Karen, my wife!)

I used (Dick Smith Parts #'s in brackets):

1m tri-core cable
2 x 220uF Capacitors (R4390)
1 x 1/4W 330k Resistor (R1136)
1 x Header Pin 3-way (P2733)
1 x Stereo 3.5mm Socket (P 1240)
Heatshrink tubing

But it is very cool cruising round with days worth of music ready to go. Big respect the OP and so many thanks - I saved $200-odd and now I'm a lot less scared of electronics.

stu.

I've always wanted to be able to use my ipaq as an MP3 player in my 323 ci conv. Today, i finally got around to soldering and installing the aux input as shown on this thread (I used the schematic on the last page of the BMW retrofit guide).

The aux in works well; I can cycle to it, and it reproduces the Ipaq's sound very clear, loud, and crisp. Because my local electronics storee did not have the suggested 0,22uF capacitators and 300KOhm resistor, I went with the closest things they had: 1 uF and 330 KOhm.

BUT....when I plug my Ipaq in to charge, the aux in suddenly 'disappears'. That is - the radio switches to FM, and 'aux' no longer appears when cycling with the mode button. When I unplug the cigarette lighter charger, everything works again.

I'm not exactly clear what's going on here. My guess is that the ipaq is in essence shorting out the resistor, thereby making the headunit 'forget' the aux in is there.

How reasonable of an explanation is this? What might be a possible solution? Are my capacitators too large, so that they're useless in blocking DC currents??

Any help greatly appreciate!!!

Fantastic! Well done.

It is wonderful to see others creating their own AUX input cables. While it is a shame that BMW charges a fortune for the cable (let alone the installation) it enables people to have a little fun with their cars by creating their own cable and installing it for a few dollars.



I've just done a similar thing with our new smart fortwo (although much simpler) - an AUX input for the smart OEM stereo!

Paul Martin
Australia

Originally Posted by tetsuostu

Right, this thread needs more love ...

Followed the OP's instructions, took an afternoon to do it all but that includes the running around.

If, like me and the OP, you live in Oz and it'll cost you $250 to get a simple Aux In, you're well better off putting it together. I was able to do this with little to no electronics experience (I only learnt how to solder yesterday) and the only exceptional tools required were small hands (thanks to Karen, my wife!)

I used (Dick Smith Parts #'s in brackets):

1m tri-core cable
2 x 220uF Capacitors (R4390)
1 x 1/4W 330k Resistor (R1136)
1 x Header Pin 3-way (P2733)
1 x Stereo 3.5mm Socket (P 1240)
Heatshrink tubing

But it is very cool cruising round with days worth of music ready to go. Big respect the OP and so many thanks - I saved $200-odd and now I'm a lot less scared of electronics.

stu.

Originally Posted by Dirkvr

I've always wanted to be able to use my ipaq as an MP3 player in my 323 ci conv. Today, i finally got around to soldering and installing the aux input as shown on this thread (I used the schematic on the last page of the BMW retrofit guide).

The aux in works well; I can cycle to it, and it reproduces the Ipaq's sound very clear, loud, and crisp. Because my local electronics storee did not have the suggested 0,22uF capacitators and 300KOhm resistor, I went with the closest things they had: 1 uF and 330 KOhm.

BUT....when I plug my Ipaq in to charge, the aux in suddenly 'disappears'. That is - the radio switches to FM, and 'aux' no longer appears when cycling with the mode button. When I unplug the cigarette lighter charger, everything works again.

I'm not exactly clear what's going on here. My guess is that the ipaq is in essence shorting out the resistor, thereby making the headunit 'forget' the aux in is there.

How reasonable of an explanation is this? What might be a possible solution? Are my capacitators too large, so that they're useless in blocking DC currents??

Any help greatly appreciate!!!

Hopefully someone with some serious electronics knowledge will be able to shed some light on this problem.
A stupid question I know, but can the Ipaq audio output normally be used while it is charging? Some devices behave strangely when charging.

Charging a device should not affect the audio output so that does seem strange. Do you have access to another Ipaq to see if it is just your unit or an Ipaq issue? I don't have this problem with my iPod (or Palm) when charging.

Paul Martin
Australia

Originally Posted by nitram_luap

Hopefully someone with some serious electronics knowledge will be able to shed some light on this problem.
A stupid question I know, but can the Ipaq audio output normally be used while it is charging? Some devices behave strangely when charging.

Charging a device should not affect the audio output so that does seem strange. Do you have access to another Ipaq to see if it is just your unit or an Ipaq issue? I don't have this problem with my iPod (or Palm) when charging.

Paul Martin
Australia

i did have this issue for one minute last night - i picked up a belkin (maybe fake - i got it off ebay) charger/dock connector/audio thingy, and when i plugged the audio into the belkin and then the belkin into the cigarette lighter i lost the AUX channel as well.

I'd turned the volume output down to 0 when plugging in it. This must have given the juice a clear path or something, because as soon as Iturned it up the AUX channel reappeared.

Hopefully this will help with anyone else having the ipaq issue.

So last weekend I got around to soldering another connector cable, this time with 0.22 uF capacitators instead of 1 uF......and the thing works much better!!!

I can now charge the ipaq while playing music, although the aux does at times disappear when I plug the charger in. Once plugged in, I can switch to aux without a problem.

So the problem seemed to be too large capacities......

Originally Posted by tetsuostu

I'd turned the volume output down to 0 when plugging in it. This must have given the juice a clear path or something, because as soon as Iturned it up the AUX channel reappeared.

Hopefully this will help with anyone else having the ipaq issue.

Quite a strange issue, The headunit picks up the AUX input via the slight resistance between left and right chanel, it should pick it up regardless of a device being connected..

I'll have to give this a try in my car, hook a device up to it whilst its charging...

The Germans (Euros) use a comma for a decimal point. It is also common engineering practice to omit capacitance units on drawings if they are in microfarads. The correct capacitor is a 0.22 uF of at least 15V rating (higher voltage rating is fine but they do get bigger in size and its not necesary). Typical commonly found caps would be a 0.22 uF 50V mylar or polypropylene film type. The code for this value cap is 224x, where x is some letter signifying tolerance, like K (10%). See this LINK for an explanation of capacitor markings. I recommend a film or poly cap as they have a better frequency response than ceramic, but you probably won't hear a difference. Do not use electrolytic capacitors in this circuit as they are polarized (have a + and - side) and tend to fail short-circuit when reverse voltage is applied for chemical reasons. A 1/4 watt carbon-film type 330k Ohm would be my choice for the resistor (orange-orange-yellow-gold/silver). 300k is not a standard value and might be hard to find, but 330k is very common. HTH

I was hoping for some help. I purchased the overpriced AUX cable from my BMW dealer and installed it for my XM SKYFI satellite radio on a 2004 325XI.

It initially worked like a champ, but now I'll be driving and then suddenly my AUX input will go away (back to FM) and it won't come back unless I turn off the car and restart it. Even that sometimes doesn't work, but after a some time I'll turn the car back on and the AUX input is back.

Sometimes the AUX input will last 1 hour or more while driving and sometimes after 5 mins it goes away.

Could I have a faulty cable? It appears from reading this thread that the radio recognizes the AUX input by way of the 300K resistor between L and R channels. I wonder if a resistor can go bad? I just bought the cable a few weeks ago.

Any other thoughts? Could the XM radio not be the correct impedance causing some issues?

Any insight or help on troubleshooting this would be appreciated as its driving me nuts...

Thanks!

-Flip

Guys, I'm a total newbie in the Bimmer world, just picked up an '03 540i on 06/06/06, what a day to buy a car! I'm trying not to be the ignorant guy that doesn't use the search button and asks all the wrong questions, but the more I search the further I get away from getting to my target.
I would really like to make my own cable specially after writting a check for over 30k, every saved dollar counts.
I've been looking all over the forums for the aux input but can't quite find the exact match to my setup.
In-dash business cd with 6 disk changer in the trunk and DSP. I'm guessing that my year has the aux input by the cd changer but would disable my changer signal to get auxilary signal instead. Reading the posts above I took my indash cd unit out and saw 2 - 12 pin connections on the cd player one is open the other has wire harness plugged in with 3 wires.
Is this similar connector to your 10 pin mentioned in the post above?
I have no idea what this 3 wire connector does, but with it disconnected from the cd player I still can play indash cd and the cd changer and I can control it all from the steering wheel. Any help much appreciated.

Here's the instructions (see attached) that came with my AUX kit for the X5, which also include instructions for your E39 5-Series. Adding the AUX kit will NOT eliminate the CD player or changer...so, you'll get to keep all existing functions.