For those of you with 02-04 rockford fosgate systems that are looking for a true AUX in, I successfully modded my 6disc fosgate in my 2004 se xterra for an aux input (and ipod charger/line out.) It involves some surgury and about an hour of disassembling and soldering but it's absolutely awesome. Zero hum silence and a toggle switch between audio from CD player and AUX (or universal ipod adapter) I know this is the mod EVERY 02-04 xterra SE owner has been looking for so I'll put together instructions to post into this thread.

I patched the ribbon cable between the intermediate board and the main board (cd player module>intermediate board>main head unit board) I traced and found the pin-outs on the boards and ribbon cables. If you're up for a fairly difficult mod, the kind that requires a steady handed xacto, soldering iron, glue gun and some caffeine.. this is for you. again, give me a couple of days and I'll post the instructions.

whitman

I'm definitely interested in seeing these instructions. Post lots of pics

Interesting...

I'd be interested in seeing the instructions as well...

'bout Time!!!! That would be freakin awesome!!!

sorry about the delay fellas. I'm trying to get another head unit to crack into. I'm convinced it doesn't absolutely need to be a RF head unit.. it just needs to be the in-dash 6cd (00-early02). kicking myself; I missed one selling for $30 last week on ebay. as soon as I get one I will have it documented with pics and tips.. second time around it will be a nice clean install. hang in there!

whitman

chances are I'll find one on ebay soon enough, but if someone has a broken/beat up 6disc in dash they want to donate for modding, for the love of all things nissan send it to me!

well I'm an idiot and just missed another $30 auction by 9 minutes. this is driving me crazy.

I found someone elses pics of a very similar mod for those of your who are itching to see what this mod entails:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=68140

take a look at this link to familiarize yourself with the head unit. the layout is the same from nissan 1995 6disc in-dash to 2004 RF 6disc in-dash head units, suprisingly.

the difference with my mod is that we patch the actual ribbon cable instead of trying to solder directly onto the board (the pins on the board are very close and easy to screw up.. unforgiving to say the least.) also, we are actually interrupting the output of the cd player module instead of just patching into it. this gets around having to play a cd with 74 minutes of burned silence.

the ribbon cable we are going to mod is the one coming out of the main board (I will explain in my next post.) with an xacto knife, we will be:

1. making one cut through four of the outermost pins on the ribbon
2. peeling them back sequentially and staggered (outermost pin is a dead one, we'll just be cutting that one out of the way.
3. bending and folding them 90 degrees outward
4. using hot glue to tack them down (bend them more than three times and they break)
5. soldering 20ga wire to each of the 6 exposed contacts
6. using hot glue to secure everything to the actual ribbon

beyond this, the instructions in the above link still hold true - you will need to do more soldering to attach the switch and the 1/8" stereo jack for the input.

because I didn't get that head unit on ebay, and the only other ones on there are $100+, I'll need to create some diagrams for the actual ribbon patch. It is very straightforward but if you don't feel up to it, I might be up for modding it for you. anyways, it would make me happy if you guys really end up doing this mod, it's worth it.

whitman

So how do you get the mp3 to play. You actually install a toggle switch?

I'll post the diagrams soon, just very busy at work right now.

to answer your question, when you cut the wires in the ribbon, you will have three wires out from the CD module and three wires in to the main board. these wires are soldered into a switch that toggles between two inputs. one input is the output of the cd module, the other input is wired to a bare 1/8" stereo jack. the output of the switch is wired back into the ribbon going to the main board. I personally bought myself a blitzsafe universal IPOD adapter (ipod -> RCA jacks) and just used a 1/8" stereo jack to RCA adapter cable between the ipod adapter and the 1/8" stereo jack. I wouldn't start taking your head unit apart until you completely understand the process.

whitman

Wow.. this is the mod I have been looking for!.. Any chance you would do an Install on mine..haha

I'm in Kent.. So not to far away..

I'll do the mod for you, it will give me an opportunity to take pictures of the entire process from scratch (what I should have done in the first place.) if you'd like to do it, I'll email you with what you need to purchase for the mod (mainly a universal ipod adapter if needed.) fyi I live just south of the huskies stadium.

whitman

Thank you Whitman!!! I did the mod today and it absolutely works... I wouldn't try it if you aren't familiar with soldiering (especially very small pcb connections). It's so easy to realize what to do, I feel stupid now. Just a matter of finding the right pcb locations and you did it. Congrats. Now I can run another switch to the aux switch and run my tv, sat radio and mp-3 through the radio. Great mod. I'd be happy to do this for anyone too. Took me about 2hrs, but now it would be much less time. I wired to the pcb , not the ribbon cable with no probs.

Thanks again

So basically everyone this is how it works...

He found where the cd player connects to the radio left and right wires. You disconnect the connection and run the output of the cd player to the input of a switch (one that has 2 inputs / 1 output stereo...(Double Pole Double Throw)) . and the other input of the switch goes to the mp-3/aux in.

The Output of the switch goes back to where you disconnected the cdplayer originally (into the radio). Clear enough???

Got pics for this?
Jay

bump....

I'm still interested in the mod, and not electrically inclined. I'd love to see pics and instructions if you can get to it.

Thanks for the idea.

I'm doing the mod on another member's head unit. this time I'll take all necessary pics and make a better effort to document it.

whitman

Thanks! I really have to do this mod now, my CD player crapped out on me. It won't eject the CDs in, take new ones in or recognize/play them. This will be a good fix for me. (I hope)

Really interested in doing this instead of going aftermarket. I'd ultimately like to be able to plug iPod and external DVD audio feed in and be able to switch between them. Anyone with good pics or directions on what to do, please let me know!

okay fellas, here are the pics and the writeup. I don't have a lot of time to write this (at work), so I'll just cover the wiring of the head unit and leave you guys to wire the input jack and switch.

you will need:

(1) basic understanding of soldering and wiring
(1) philips screwdriver, mid-sized.
(1) needlenose pliers
(1) x-acto knife, pref with a flat blade and a pointed one.
(1) soldering iron w/ a fairly small tip (30w pref wattage, 15 could be okay.)
(1) roll of solder, I use .015 dia 1.0 oz silver.
(1) roll of electrical tape
(1) hot glue gun w/ a refill
(1) input jack, could be female headphone jack, guitar jack, whatever I suppose)
(1) 3PDT ON-ON MINI-TOGGLE SWITCH, order it online.

you should have (*not required):
(1) continuity tester and multimeter. this is to test your solder points and measure the volt loss in the connections.
(1) a cup of coffee

I will write up descriptions, instructions and warnings below the posted pictures FYI.



take all of the screws out of the metal backing (should be 10 or 11, large red highlight section) and the 1 screw out of the little ribbon access cover (the small highlight section above)

The ribbon will need to be removed for modding. the top of the ribbon can just be pulled out with minimal force, I would almost use a toothpick and place it in the top fold to pull it out. the bottom contact point has a small clasp insert that will need to be pulled up with a fingernail before it lets go, you'll see. make a mental note of how much of the metal contacts are showing when it's completely plugged in, this will help you later.



gently fold it down flat, bottom contacts facing up.



this is where it gets interesting. MAKE SURE IT IS ORIENTED EXACTLY AS ABOVE! using your flat xacto blade, cut through the first four wires as above (incision is the red line, wire #1 is a dummy) I can't stress how important it is that you don't go wild and cut into the 5th wire.

okay, so you just put the flat blade on the four wires, make sure it wasn't going to cut into the 5th wire, rocked it back and forth until it was definitely cut all the way through.

* this might be a good time to plug in the soldering iron and the hot glue gun.



now the pins will need to be separated from their front and back protective layer. I colored the wires GREEN where they will need to be pulled up and exposed. it won't be pretty, but this is where I use the pointed xacto blade, prodded at the end of each wire until I get an edge, grab onto just the wire end with the needlenose pliers while trying to pin down the protective backing (I used my fingernail), and pull up and away from the incision. if you pull them out in the exact sequence above, they should look just like the picture, just wild and pointing up.

IMPORTANT, do not bend them too many times! seriously just pull them up with the needlenose and once they are pulled to the point highlighted in green, just stop.



carefully cut away the extra plastic backing, then fold the wires down and out, don't cut the wires you may need every centimeter to solder it. if you bend the wires more than like three times they will break and you will be SOL, so just fold it down once preferably not crunched up on itself, fold it at 45/90 onto itself.



hot glue everything in place, leaving enough of the bare wires to solder them.



tape the ribbon down, tape the wires you are going to use for the switch (I used some CAT5e network cable, but you could use some 20guage copper wire from radioshack) it is important you position and pin down everything exactly as you'd like to solder it.. this will help.



NOTICE the wires mirror from where you cut them (duh) but seriously. L-GRND-R ... R-GRND-L

make sure you note which wires come in from the CD module and which ones are going to the main board, I used the dark wires for CD-OUT and light wires for MAINBOARD-IN.

CONTINUED >>>>>

hot glue that puppy, stick a piece of electrical tape onto the back of the solder contacts, hot glue it to cover the contacts completely, then stick another piece of electrical tape on top and flatten it a bit. I used clear tape so you guys would see what's going on, but I'd recommend electrical tape.

once it hardens, you should feel pretty confident that none of the contacts are going to be pulled out, and that the individual wires are supported.

** IMPORTANT, try not to go completely overboard with the hot glue here. you will need to slip it into a fairly thin place. also, try not to lay the glue on heavy between the pairs so that the wire still bends as it was before you flattened it.



slip the wire under the metal lip, then gently pull the ribbon into place. this is why you shouldn't go overboard on the hot glue, cause the solder points, tape and hot glue needs to fit under this lip. I highlighted more or less where everything will be under the metal lip.

TO GET THE RIBBON BACK IN, remember the bottom contact on the mainboard has a clasp that needs to be pulled up with a fingernail to allow the ribbon to slide in, there will still be some of the metal contact showing when it's all the way in.

Note where I ran my wire, this is safe as long as you put a tiny bit of tension on it to keep the wire from buckling inside of the unit, bending, curling or otherwise getting messed up. a little bit of tension after you put the cover back on will keep it straight under the lip. If you feel like it, put a tiny ziptie on it to keep that little bit of tension once the cover is on.

----

OKAY, so I don't have time to show wiring instructions of the switch.. you guys should be able to figure it out. I'm pretty sure I posted a link earlier on this thread to someone else that did a similar mod who posted a wiring diagram for the switch and input jack. If you guys really need me to post them, I will.

OPERATION: you will need a CD in the player for this to work, can be any CD. I personally set my HU to DISC1 TRACK1 and REPEAT TRACK so it always displays 01-01 and so it doesn't try to change disks (this cuts out the audio for about a second.) the switch you wire will toggle between the CD player audio and the input audio.

TROUBLESHOOTING: I have a universal ipod charger/adapter that is hard wired and outputs to RCA L/R jacks. The last guy I did this for has a Harmon Kardon Drive+Play that plugs into the cigarette lighter. so here's the thing....

if whatever you are using doesn't ground out correctly (like if I hardwired my ipod adapter but forgot to attach the ground to the headunit bracket, hehe) you will hear a loud hum that ramps up then the music starts. this is the ipod adapter grounding out through the audio inputs, not good. if you hear this, power down and unplug whatever it is you had plugged into the input. chances are you were using some kind of charger/adapter with your ipod. you can still just plug the ipod (or whatever) directly into the jack without the charger and it will work fine. in the meantime, pm me or post to this thread.

another thing that can happen is hearing alternator whine over your speakers (you gas up, the pitch gets higher.) usually, this is from an adapter that outputs to RCA L/R jacks (like mine.) you will need pinch a wire between the plug shield and the outer rim of the outlet, connecting the other side to the head unit mounting bracket.

other than that, good luck I need to get to work (9am - 12:30pm putting this together

A few questions about this mod...

1. Do you lose anything? Like after doing this will i still be able to use both the radio and the 6 disc changer?

2. As far as the ipod interface, does it have to connect to the dock on the ipod, or can you run to a mini-jack into the headphone input? Will this cause for a loss in sound quality? Is there a benefit to using something like the Blitzsafe adapter?

Thanks!

Whitman just completed the mod on my RF headunit...it works great! It took me all of about 5 minutes to install the headunit once I got it back and I now have it hooked up to the Harmon Kardon Drive+Play...talk about the best interior mod to date for the 02-04 RF 6-disc owners...I headed out of town on a road trip without much testing to see if any bugs would come about, so far it has been perfect. Sound quality is good, at least as good as the factory speakers are and I still have a fully functional CD player and radio. This has been a great mod...

Xbsu, you will not lose any functionality of the head unit. when playing actual cds, flip the switch for cd input and the audio from the cd will come through.. when using the aux in, flip the switch and though the cd will still be "playing", the audio from the aux will be coming through.

technically, you *could* just wire in a 3.5mm stereo male plug as your "input" and plug it directly into an ipod, zune, walkman, whatever. otherwise, I'd recommend wiring in a 3.5mm stereo female jack, and either use a 3.5mm male-male stereo cable to plug between that and your ipod or, if you're using a drive+play or other adapter that uses RCA L/R, use an RCA L/R > 3.5mm stereo male adapter cable (avail at radioshack.)

The only real benefit of a blitzsafe universal ipod adapter is that it charges your ipod while it plays. royce has a drive+play which charges and lets you remote control the ipod, slick.

I have not used an ipod 12v car charger with this system but I foresee possible alternator whine, depending on how the car charger grounds itself.

does this help?

whitman

Excellent, I have been waiting for that write-up for a while now!

Should I expect any whine if I am running a satellite radio through it (which is plugged in to the 12V power supply)?

Thanks a ton Whitman! You have bettered my audio pleasure in a manner which I never thought possible!

freestyle, I have yet to hear about alternator whine with this mod but I wouldn't rule it out. royce uses a 12v power outlet and he doesn't get any whine. either way, running a separate wire from the outer shield of the RCA jack to the HU mounting bracket will take care of it.

whitman

correction, noone I've set this mod up for uses the 12v power adapter. I have two that use ipod direct to the input, three that use the exact same system as I do (blitzsafe Universal IPOD adapter) and one that uses a harmon/kardon drive+play.

MOST RECENT NEWS: the user of the drive+play had his wired direct to stereo harness and had a H/U glitch over two weeks in with no problems beforehand. This could easily be a problem with the H/U and nothing to do with the mod but I feel the need to write it up. He can only play the first two tracks of his CDs (?) I would recommend using either my exact system (blitzsafe) or direct IPOD > input from now on.

whitman

Just did this mod today, sounds amazing. Keeps a nice factory look, but I'm still able to carry all of my music with me.

Took me a couple of hours, mostly with the ribbon, but after that its just soldering and you're done.

Thanks for the idea man.

anyone around please give me a vote, thanks!

this is all great but does anyone know where we can get these electronic strips incase we end up messing it up or we just want to prefab one up

So I really want to do this mod but am unsure how to wire to the switch and how to go about using just a headphone jack to do it.

Also, where should the switch be mounted?

Any suggestions/answers would be awesome...

Just did this mod...took about three hours...works like a charm. I did mine a bit differently...instead of blitzsafe ipod interface I used a RCA to 1/8" Stereo jack...all I did was cut off the RCA connections and connect the shielding to the ground on the switch...Sounds great! Thanks again!

xbsu, good to hear! strat33, that ribbon cable is near impossible to find.. $115 online or something like that. just make sure you read my instructions twice and have all the right tools (glue gun, xacto knife, all of it) the pins on the cable can take about three bends before they break so just be careful and bend once.

also, do you guys really need me to post wiring instructions on the switch? I almost feel like if you can't figure it out you shouldn't be doing this mod.. maybe I'm being too harsh? say the word and I'll post them.

whitman

I'd like to see them as I'm getting ready to try this mod and would like to make sure I'm doing it right!

Thanks

I just did mine and it came out great!

Thanks for the great instructions....

My specs
2003 Xterra 4x4 SE
6 disc indash RF unit
Ipod 80gig
Blitzsafe Ipod Adapter

The only thing I noticed if you have it on aux/Ipod and switch to Radio you will hear both Radio and Ipod. (no big deal)

I followed your directions but soldered wires and used heat shrink tubing on wires going to ribbon and then used hot glue.

I used a toggle switch but plan to replace it with a push button in near future.

mod cost me
Blitzsafe $50
switch $3
2 male RCA's $2
Cat 5 cable (Free had it)
Heat shrink (Free had it)

The overall experience- PRICELESS

Thanks again!

sorry, for a while the pics didn't work.. fixed now. I'll keep a better eye on the thread to answer questions.

whitman

whitman,

Just wanted to shout out and give the thread a bump to the top.

I did the mod back in sept 2007 and have been running my ipod ever since! This is one hell of a great mod.

Anyone needing this done and will a little soldering experience and time can do it carefully.

Thanks once again for this life saving mod.

Hi all...

First I'd like to thank Whitman for posting the intructions on the aux-in mod. I realize that some time has passed since this topic has been discussed, but I noticed that the photos posted are no longer active. Would you mind re-posting them whitman?

I have attempted the mod and i get audio from the cd player but for some reason it shuts down when I flip the switch to my aux-in and I don't get any audio from my aux-in. I'm hoping the pics will shed some light on what I've done wrong.

Also... I'm curious if anyone else noticed that if you follow this link: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=68140
pins 15, 14 and 13 were modified as opposed to 14,13 and 12 with pin 15 being a "dummy" pin. Is there a reason for this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks all!

Fellow Xterra owner,

Ryan
schlick90@hotmail.com

Hmm... That's really interesting. I my try taking that approach.

Is there some sort of signal sensing switch? If you plug in the ipod and start playing a mp3 it senses the signal and toggles the source, rather than a manual switch?

This could make everything internal to the radio (assuming there is enough room to squirrel the switch away in it).

That's not a bad idea LostDog. I'll have to look around for one.

For those of you looking at perfoming this mod, it appears as though there might be two different RF/HU models for 02-04 Xterras. The ribbon that connects the cd changer to the tuner carries the right and left channel audio on different pins. Just an FYI!

Has anyone else in this forum performed this mod? Without Whitman's photos I'm still having trouble knowing what pins to connect to where. Any help from anyone else has done this mod would be greatly appreciated.

I too would love to see the picks again, can someone post them up or send them to me, ill host for a bit. Also was a sound sensing relay ever discovered?

I am still in the middle of trying to get this mod to work. Is there anyone who has successfullly completed this that could answer a couple questions? Without the pictures, I am unsure what it is I have done wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!~

Harris, I took a look at the other mod. The audio pins shift one down when passed through that middle "stick of gum" board.. I remember noticing this ('cause I completely disassembled my unit first time for modding) In this mod, the interception is done before that board.

** also please take another look at the other mod post, I'm confident the pins do not change between years. As long as it's a RF 6 disc you are okay.

whitman

Whitman,

Your explanation of the pins shifting down one on the board clears up a lot! Thanks for re-posting the pics, I can now see what I did wrong and I'm anxious to get mine fixed. Thanks again!

-Harris

i know this thread is quite old now and it seems that everyone is now unregistered, but does anyone have the pictures which would help a ton with doing this mod?

Thanks

AHHHH does any one know how to do this or where the pictures are!!! ive done it, and everything works the same.... but when you flip the switch (which may be to wrong type/wired wrong?) the cd/radio goes off the head set freezes and doesnt do any thing! (till you turn off the car, switch the switch back then its back to normal! why is every one no longer a member!!

cody, I originally posted this but when they upgraded the site I lost my member and it disassociated all of my post and stripped the images. I'm trying to get the admins to restore the pictures, but what questions do you have? how did you 'do it'?

whitman

Hey, so happy to know your still out there! so I finally got the right switch 3PDT on-on mini toggle, and wired it how I thought it should work (have a basic understanding) but it is the same as before (when i was using just a DPDT switch)The CD playing works as normal but once the switch is fliped it stops working and freezes. I'm pretty sure I did it all right, but have no clue why it doesnt work, and I am still unsure on the switch wiring. Hope fully the admins will restore the pictures!

Thanks, Cody

I've been looking for a step by step like this for a while. Most things out there are for the standard unit with the 8-pin adapter work around. First question, did you ever confirm that this will work with the 2001 6-disk in-dash changer? Second, is there any status update on restoring the pictures? I was wondering if maybe you still had them on a hard drive somewhere and could email them. I am going to message the admins as well to help get these pics posted again.

Thanks,
Chris

The links to the images are still there. I looked. Whatever site they are linked to is no longer hosting them.

Edit to add:

Here is the site that is/was hosting the images.

http://ftp.thebigprint.com/images/temp/2.jpg

That is unfortunate :P XOC thank you for looking that up, though.. I will still try to track down the images.

I'm still interested! hopefully you can find those photos! If not can you post how to wire the switch... I'm thinking thats my problem

Still nothing I take it? man I want this mod so bad!

so does an one know how to wire the switch? I have HU input and output, then CD input and output, and then the stereo jack input and output now how do I connect those to a 3PDT switch?

Im intrested too. Would love to see the photos to do this mod.

http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?cmd=print&id=11735 I found this one and It's still in the making as I need to get a new mp3 player to see if it works(the jack is f'ed), but as I have it now, only the right side of the speakers work will post back when I finish it. oh also this mod (if it works)is super simple

here are pics of it [img]http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=478474997983&set=a.478471777983.250983.556667983[/img] hope that works tell me if it doesnt!

so unless you want to use a switch to turn from aux to cd and w.e do the original mod if not try the one I posted about! I just got a new mp3 and aux cable soldered 2 wires and it works simplest mod ever, and when you plug your mp3 in, it just cuts out the cd music and plays the aux music! couldnt be more happy with this mod and its actually the most simple one ever.

take front face plate off small screw driver and just lift the tabs on top and sides should come off then


shows the back and what to do


new cord other was bust as the right speakers were only working, now both are!!! soo stoked and soo damn easy compared to another mod I was trying
[img=http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/da66ba1520.jpg]

and what you can do to ground it

working great still! had a minor problem after 15 mins of use (sound from mp3 cut out and cd played as normal), just had to wrap and solider the ground wire to the frame of the HU hope people are finding this handy

I messed up. I have been looking for a way to do this for a long time and bump into this forum. I split the ribbon wire, but when I was soldering the wire the soldering iron bumped the end of the wire where all the end pins are, and now they are melted. Does anyone know where I can buy this exact ribbon cable?

why bother with the original mod? it's soo much more complicated and easy to mess up then the one i posted... and you still have full function of cd radio and aux with out touching the ribbon!:) check mine out way easier!

made a some what better explanation on how to do the mod up above

http://www.xterraownersclub.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=675594#Post675594

Nice. I wish I would have done that one instead. But now I don't have the ribbon cable to make that mod work either. Have any ideas on how to salvage this project without having to buy a new stereo?

.... hmm not too sure, if the ribbon is melted maybe you could solder small bits of wire to replace what was messed up??? no clue :S