Hack - Kenwood Car Stereo Aux in Lead

I've been meaning to install an aux in socket in my car for what seems like years now. Well I've finally got around to doing it. I found this car stereo lying round the house and i opened it up to see what i was dealing with. The plan was to try and solder a 3.5mm jack socket onto the CD input. The result should be that when i play a silent CD the audio from my iPhone should be played.

Anyway, I've opened up the stereo and dismantled it to where I've just got the main circuit board, which you can see on the left, in my hands. The component which has the red box around is where the ribbon cable from the CD player connects. This is the CD input that i need to solder the cable to.







This is what it looks like from the bottom which is the side i needed to solder. Now i wasnt too sure on which pins were the audio L/R and GND. So, i did a search on google. I was typing in various things and not getting much look. That was until i typed in "J76-0048-32 kenwood" which is the long number written in white on the top of the circuit board. It brought up a pdf file with everything i needed in it. I located CN2 on the diagram and found that the pins i needed pins 16, 17 and 18.



Now the problem was that i didnt know which end to start counting. There was nothing indicating what pin 1 was. I checked the CD player though and where the ribbon connected was a similar component. This one however had a small 1 at one end and 24 at the other. So i followed the ribbon to find out which end to start counting on my input. Easy as really.

These were the three pins needed. The right hand one being pin 16.

16 - Right Channel
17 - GND
18 - Left Channel

So I've soldered the cable to the points put everything back together. I did make a mistake here feeding the cable out the side of the unit. I never considered what id do when i had to push it back into the cage. It was a tight fit and a bit of a struggle but i eventually squeezed it through. In hindsight, you should feed the cable out the back.






And here is the finished article. I've raised the socket off the plastic by using a black washer which i think makes it look smart. The sound quality is fantastic too. I get like a 1 second blip when the CD recycles back to track 1 but that only happens like every 80 minutes or so.

Great Apps - Fat Fingers

If you haven't heard of fat fingers, it's essentially a tool which searches for misspelt items on eBay, you type in what you want on the app and it will search eBay for any listings where that item is misspelt.

The theory is that misspelt items get less views and often sell for cheap. The evidence I have for this was an Xbox Kinect we bought for £40. It was as good as new but was spelt Knect. On eBay. A bargain I'm sure you would all agree.

You will struggle to find misspelt things like iPads or xboxs but items with longer names like blackberry and playstation may yield some results.. Difficult to spell item searches can be bountiful.

The app was free when I acquired it and I imagine it's still free now. The app is on Android and iOS and here is also a website you can use.

Great Apps - Pano

This app let's you take panoramic photographs with your iPhone. To take your panoramic photo you take the first picture then the app leaves a small semi transparent edge of the picture on the screen which you the line up for the next picture. There is no limits on how many segments you use apart from obviously only having 360 degrees to play with. Once you have finished taking the pictures the app magically merges them all and creates a beautiful panoramic photo for you.

This app has been available for a while but with the iPhone finally having a decent camera this app has come into
It's own. At £1.49 this app is a bargain in my opinion and a must have for your holidays this summer. Screen glare can be a problem when trying to line up the shots but a matte iPhone screen protector should eliminate the glare.

Great Apps - IFixIt

This app is certainly great. It is basically a repair manual for various electrical goods. It has lists of potential problems for various gadgets from xbox 360, ps3 to iphone and blackberry playbook, and how to go about repairing them. Some of them even contain video how to's. The best thing about it is it's free on iOS.

Cheap but useful gadgets - 2m iPhone cable

This was less than £2 on eBay. The cable you get with your phone is tiny and near useless if you don't have a plug socket near you. I use my phone in bed quite often and I have to lay in a weird position. This cable is a god send.

Although a mini cable for plugging into the laptop is also a good shout. That would prevent cable tangle.

Cheap but useful gadgets - IPhone 4s horn amplifier

This cost a tidy £1.99 off eBay. Another Hong Kong import. Once again it was worth the month long delivery though. I bought a silicone version but there is a bone version available. That will more than likely be considerably more expensive mind.

It's a powerless portable amp for your iPhone 4s. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly no good if you're hosting a party and the sound quality isnt a match for an expensive sound system but for personal use it's fantastic. I work out on remote sites out on my own and this is perfect for giving my iPhone volume a tidy boost.

I've used it out camping a lot and for BBQs also. I'd recommend checking campsite rules first mind.