Does anybody know how to retrofit a 3.5mm audio jack??

[CharlesAFerg]

I want to make a jack to plug my mp3 players/laptop into my car for audio...

I can't find anything on the issue, but I know people have done it.
I've got the regular cassette deck, and my car is not wired for a CD changer.

[AngryPopTart]

I looked into this last time I had my deck apart to fix the volume knob. I could not find any datasheets to the cassette IC, and the signal has to run through the decks other IC's, for use with the volume, fader, bass, treble, etc., before hitting the power amp. I usually don't find it difficult to follow traces and discern which are the audio signal traces, but in cassette IC's case I was stumped. Hopefully, I can accomplish this in the future as well because mine won't play tapes anymore, anyway. You would also have to accomplish manually enabling the cassette portion so as to use it's audio chain... either that or do it the ghetto way and leave the cassette mechanism intact and use a dummy tape so it engages it's switch.


Note: Actually, now that I think about it, I wasn't examining the cassette IC, I was considering bypassing the radio portion since I don't normally listen to the radio. GAH, now I wanna open it back up. >_<

[timandbim]

i had my local tv repairman do it for $20. i took him the deck (mine is aftermarket btw) and he spliced an rca cable into the cd channels on the circuitboard inside the unit. if you play your mp3 at the same time as a cd you hear both which is kind of cool.

or maybe you could jack into the inputs on the amp in the back?

[pingu]

Do you mean you want to fit a 3.5mm socket to your car cassette player? I'd say it's probably not worth the effort. If you're familiar with electronics and you can hold of a circuit diagram of the cassette player then it might be worth a go - you'd want to hook into the audio signals after the cassette/radio and before the power amplifier; you could probably disconnect the cassette signals (i.e. the left and right audio) entirely. If you can't get a circuit diagram then you could take the top off and Google the serial numbers of the silicon chips until you find which one is doing the cassette, then try to download a datasheet for the cassette chip so that you can find out which pins are the audio signals. But without trying to be rude (it's not meant that way), I reckon that if you have to ask then you'd better off buying a CD or radio deck with a built in 3.5mm jack.

[karl1171]

I'm assuming the casette head is still ok: perhaps use one of these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=27793&doy=19m12


Or similar with memory card
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=98741&doy=19m12

I'm sure these will be available from electronics/technology stores outside the uk

[Qube]

With the old tape deck? You're better off with a cassette to 3.5 adapter as above...

After I changed to the red JVC, I used the aux out and jacked it to the punchout to the right of the cluster.

[CharlesAFerg]

With the old tape deck? You're better off with a cassette to 3.5 adapter as above...

Those things crap out every 6 months I've noticed...