Need an aux output. Instructions on how to make aux on any radio

Car radios, especially standard ones, have never been rich in functionality. Now the following trend is evident: everyone has smartphones and tablets, but it is not always possible to connect these gadgets to the radio, because it was released a long time ago, but at the same time continues to work properly. So what should a car owner do in such a situation? This is what we will discuss in today’s article.

What is AUX output

This is a small connector to which you can apply voltage in the range from 0.4 to 1.9 volts. We call it a linear output, but in Western machines it is designated as “AUX-OUT” (and a little earlier it was designated as “CD-OUT”). If a device has such an output, it almost certainly means that it is also equipped with an audio amplifier. Therefore, by connecting a tablet or smartphone to this connector, you can listen to music collections directly through the car’s speakers.

The problem is that on old radios there is not always such an output. And if a car owner wants to listen to some file from his smartphone in the car, then he will have 2 options:

• Buy a new radio with an AUX output (which is quite expensive).
• Try installing the AUX output yourself.

In this article we will focus on the second option.

Installing an AUX output on a CD radio

It should be noted right away that the vast majority of such car radios are already equipped with AUX connectors, but for some reason manufacturers do not consider it necessary to display them on the dashboard.

1. The car owner will have to solve this problem on his own.
2. Insulating tape.
3. A set of standard keys for removing a CD radio.
4. Wire from a computer USB controller.
5. Jumper from the computer hard drive.

Headphone cable with 3.5 mm plug.

1. Sequence of actions when installing an AUX output on a CD radio
2. The decorative plate is removed from the radio (it is best to carefully pry it off with a knife). Then, using a Phillips screwdriver, unscrew the 2 screws on which the grille is attached. After unscrewing the screws, it rises up:
3. Now access to the radio is open, and it is removed from the niche using standard keys.
4. On the back wall of the case there is a white connector on which the AUX output will be installed:
5. The connector contacts on the radio are closed with a jumper in accordance with the diagram presented below:
6. The USB cable connected to the connector consists of three wires: the left channel wire, the right channel wire and shielding. The wires of the left and right channels are connected to a two-core cable with a plug, after which the connection point is insulated:
7. The resulting cable and jumper are inserted into the radio connector:
8. After that, it is installed in place, and the cable with the AUX plug is routed into the ashtray:

Video: independent connection of the AUX output to the car radio

Installing an AUX output on a standard car radio

The main problem with stock radios is that they are very difficult to remove. There is a second problem: not all standard radios have external AUX connectors, so you will almost certainly have to disassemble the radio itself.

Tools and Supplies

1. 3 insulated wires with a cross section of 0.5 cm and a length of 30 cm.
2. Headphone plug 3.5 mm.
3. Heat shrink.
4. Soldering iron.
5. Phillips screwdriver (medium size).

Sequence of actions when installing an AUX output on the head unit

1. The decorative strip located above the radio is carefully pryed off with a knife and removed.
2. Using the same knife, pry up the decorative panel near the gear shift lever, after which the panel is removed manually.
3. This gives access to two mounting screws that hold the radio. They are unscrewed with a Phillips screwdriver.
4. The radio is removed, all wires and connectors are disconnected from the back:
5. Use a Phillips screwdriver to unscrew all the bolts holding the CD player cover. After which it is removed from the radio casing:
6. On the player board you need to find three points marked “LCH”, “RCH” and “GND” (these are the left stereo channel, the right channel and the ground).
7. 3 wires are soldered to these points, which are then assembled and heat-shrinked for safety.
8. The radio is assembled in the reverse order, the resulting three-core cable is routed into the interior (preferably into the glove compartment or ashtray), after which a 3.5 mm plug is soldered to it.

Installing an AUX output on an old cassette car radio

Currently, it is almost impossible to see such a device in a car. Nevertheless, among car enthusiasts there are occasionally those who are sorry to throw away an outdated, but still working radio, and also want to listen to music from a pocket MP3 player. The recipe below is for them.

Tools and Supplies

1. 3 shielded wires (length 30 cm, diameter 0.5 cm).
2. Heat shrink.
3. Headphone plug 3.5 mm.
4. Phillips screwdriver (medium size).

Sequence of actions when installing an AUX output on a cassette player

1. Using a Phillips screwdriver, the fastening bolts are unscrewed, after which the radio is removed from the niche.
2. Use the same screwdriver to unscrew the bolts holding the radio cover. It is removed, allowing access to the tape drive mechanism.
3. As a rule, the mechanism is attached to metal latches. They are bent manually, the mechanism is removed (although it may not be removed, it depends on whether it interferes with getting to the volume control or not).
4. Next, a 3-pin volume control is removed from the radio, to which 3 additional wires are soldered using a soldering iron. Common, for the left stereo channel and for the right stereo channel. The connection diagram looks like this:
5. These 3 wires are placed in heat shrink, after which the radio is assembled and installed in its original place.
6. The wire is led out into the glove compartment, and a 3.5 mm plug is soldered to it.

So, is it difficult to connect the AUX output? As practice shows, everything depends on the design of the radio. This solution is easiest to do on relatively modern CD radios, which were purchased separately from the car. In all other cases, the car owner will have to tinker with a soldering iron. Unfortunately, we cannot do without this.

How to connect AUX?

Today on the radio tape recorder market, almost all of them are made with a built-in linear input - AUX. But there are still manufacturers who install this option only as an additional option.

A linear AUX input may be needed when you need to connect a variety of external devices - a smartphone, player, TV, microphone, etc. In other words, this is an input that makes it possible to play audio and video films using portable devices through the car audio system.

Any radio is equipped with such a function, but the only hindrance is the lack of an input. However, this is a solvable problem, since you can do and understand how to connect the AUX input to the radio yourself, without the help of technical service specialists.

How to make an AUX port

For manufacturing you will need the following tools:

• headphones with a standard 3.5 mm jack;
• soldering iron and solder;
• necessary connectors;
• wires.

If your car has a radio that comes standard, it most likely already has a line-in input. That's why:

1. Find the connection pinout. There we see three contacts for connecting the left and right channels.
2. We manually check that only the necessary wires are disconnected. You don’t have to worry about your safety: the voltage is very low, so there will be no electric shock. We check each of the wires with our finger. To do this, we turn the volume of the car radio higher, and when we touch the wire, we hear a hum from the speakers.
3. Now you need to solder the headphone jack. This can be done directly, or you can solder tulip-type connectors (which will make it possible to connect different devices through adapters).
4. As a standard, we will connect devices to the car radio using a cable with AUX ports on both sides.

You don't have to buy this cable. If you have non-working headphones at home (and this is a fairly common situation, since headphones tend to break often), do not hesitate to cut the cable. We'll be connecting them, so keep in mind the length you'll need. So:

• We cut the headphones so that there are wires at one end and 3.5 mm jack connectors at the other ends. We get two identical cables.
• We strip the wires from the side where there are no jack connectors.
• Having stripped the wires, we see that there are three wires of different colors (in both cases this is a standard color) - white, blue and green.
• twist the same-color wires of the two cables to make a double-sided cable.
• take a soldering iron and solder, secure the contacts.
• Next we isolate the contact using electrical tape
• We connect one end of the cord to the car radio connector, and the other to the connector of our device.

Today, most devices are made with a standard headphone jack - laptops, tablets, smartphones, portable TVs and much more. Therefore, using your cable, you can easily make the connection.

To listen to music on the car radio, you will need to select AUX mode. Next, open the audio player on your phone or tablet and turn on the desired song. Now the music will not sound from the phone speaker, but will be played by the car’s audio system.

A radio tape recorder is a sound reproducing device of the second half and end of the twentieth century. Only a few decades have passed and the magnetic cassette can only be seen in the cinema or in a museum. Time passes, the tapes are gone, but the tape recorders are still there.

A distinctive feature of those radios was good acoustics and fairly decent amplifiers. And if we apply a signal to them from another source, we can get high-quality loud sound.

What could be such a source, tablet, phone, MP3 player. But the whole problem is that in old radio tape recorders there is no input that would qualitatively interface with the linear output of the above devices. And AUX is precisely the linear input for such a radio.

How to organize it?

If you disassemble the radio, and this is done quite easily, you can see inside the tape mechanism, which we do not need, and the amplifier board, which is the main device of the radio. What do we need for this operation? The main tool we need is a Phillips screwdriver and a soldering iron with supplies of tin and rosin.

Having disassembled the radio, you can remove the tape drive mechanism, or you can leave it for decoration. In addition, you need to find a volume control, which usually has two paired variable resistances.

Each of these resistances has three terminals.

We will also need two shielded wires about thirty centimeters long. The screens are usually connected to each other and soldered to the end that is connected to the body. The central cores of the shielded wire are connected to contacts opposite the shield.

This wire can be routed through any hole in the housing. At the end of this wire we solder the minijack and the linear input to the radio is ready. And the radio is ready to become your new amplifier with a speaker system.

Many sound-reproducing devices (for example, radios, stereos, CD/MP3 players, televisions) have a connector designed to supply external signals - the AUX input. In this article we will look at the practical use of this socket.

AUX line input

The amplitude of the signal supplied to the linear input varies in the range from 0.5 to 1 V. This signal level is produced by any music playback devices that have a connector. It is usually labeled as AUX OUT. The same signal level is supplied to the headphones. Therefore, the headphone output can be connected to the AUX input.

Line input connection

The scope of application of the mentioned connector is quite wide. So, for example, if you want to listen to music from an MP3 player or smartphone (tablet) through powerful speakers rather than headphones, you can connect your device to the AUX input of a music center or other similar device. To connect you will need an adapter cord. On one side of the cable there should be a 3.5mm jack connector (headphone plug), and on the other side there should be a pair of tulip connectors. The cord itself must be a four-core acoustic cord with an outer copper braid. You can buy such a cable in a store or make it yourself. The jack connector can be cut off from non-working headphones or purchased at a radio store. When purchasing connectors, you can choose their shape and design - from the cheapest (plastic) to the most expensive (gold-plated metal). Once you have found all the plugs and wire, you can begin assembly. We strip the insulation at the ends of the wire and solder the connectors to them. The “Jake” has central contacts that are signal, and the outer contact is a common wire. With the “tulip” everything is exactly the same. Some devices have a headphone output using the minijack standard; in this case, you need to solder the corresponding connector. The wiring remains the same. After this, be sure to check the cable with a multimeter in “test” mode to ensure that there is no incorrect connection.

Setting up AUX input

So the cord is ready, you can connect our player to the music center. We connect the cable to AUX and turn on the AUX IN mode on the device being played. For digital devices this is done through the menu, and for analog devices - using a switch. It should be remembered that before you turn on playback on the player, you must reduce the volume level on the music center or other device being played. This is done so that the device does not “scream” at full blast if a powerful signal is applied to the output channel.

Conclusion

Using this principle, you can connect various devices (laptops, netbooks, iPods, tablets, etc.) to devices that contain frequencies - stereo systems, televisions, home theaters, cassette recorders, etc. A good connection is obtained by connecting CD/MP3 players and cassette recorders. The latter are used extremely rarely in the era of digital music, although they sometimes have much better characteristics. So such a combination gives new life to analog technology.

Many modern music playback devices have a connector labeled AUX IN. This connector is available on stereos, radios, and televisions. The AUX IN input is also available on car receivers. Scientifically, this input is called “linear input”. On old cassette recorders or radios it was labeled CD IN. These inputs are designed for tulip-type plugs (sometimes also called “bananas”).

The amplitude of the signal supplied to the linear input can vary within 0.5 - 1V. A signal of this magnitude is produced by any reproducing devices that have a linear output jack. This jack is usually labeled AUX OUT or CD OUT. The same is the magnitude of the signal supplied to the headphones. Therefore, the headphone output can also be connected to the AUX IN input.

From the linear input, the signal is fed directly to the audio amplifier, which is an integral part of any of the above sound reproducing devices. Thus, a relatively weak signal coming from, for example, an MP3 player or an iPod can be easily amplified and reproduced through loudspeakers. Are you driving in a car and want to listen through the speakers to a collection of your favorite songs collected on the player? No problem! Just connect the playback device to the AUX IN socket of your car radio or radio.

How to do it? The easiest way is to buy a special mini-jack adapter cable - “tulip”. This adapter is inexpensive and is sold at almost any kiosk that sells headphones and other similar accessories.
If you don’t have money or you simply feel like a “homemade” person, then such an adapter can be soldered manually. The plug and wire can be taken from damaged headphones. We'll cut off the headphones, but the wire should be fine. Therefore, before starting work, “ring” it with a multimeter.

Three parts are clearly visible on the headphone plug contact. The wide part closest to the plastic base is the common wire. If you remove the insulation from the ends of the headphone wire, you will find one conductor of the same color in both wires. This is the common wire. The green and red wires are the left and right channel wires, respectively. We will solder all these conductors to the “tulip” connectors in the following order. We solder the common wire to the metal bases of the “tulip” connectors, and each of the channel conductors to the middle terminals of the connectors. After soldering, you should “ring” the connection again and, if everything is in order, insulate all contacts.
All is ready! We insert the “tulips” into the AUX IN connectors and switch the amplifier to AUX IN mode. For new receivers, radios or televisions, this switching occurs through the menu. If you use old devices, for example, cassette recorders, switching is done with the FUNCTION switch, which is set to the CD IN position.

Modern playback devices, for example MP3 players, produce a fairly strong output signal. To prevent the amplification device from “screaming” too loudly, reduce the amplifier volume to minimum before connecting. Once connected, it is easy to adjust the volume to the level you need.

Likewise, it is possible to connect any playback device to any device that includes an audio amplifier. MP3 players, laptops, TVs can be connected to music centers, home theaters, cassette recorders...

By the way, if you have an old but serviceable cassette player collecting dust on your shelf, which you were once proud of, but now, in the era of digital music, you hardly use, “revive” it by connecting an MP3 player or iPod to AUX IN.