Wiring/Electrical question for iPod adapter to factory HU

[Storm Shadow]

Hopefully with all of the expertise around this site someone can help me out here.

I am trying to hook up the Blaupunkt iPod Adapter (PIE Blau/8-POD - link) to a factory non-Monsoon head unit (w/in dash CD).

Here is the diagram on the package:



I plugged the blue 8-pin plug into the correct slot where the CD changer was, and I successfully wired the red power wire into the switched 12V line going into the head unit.

When I turn the ignition and radio on, I switch it to AUX, and I see on my iPod that it is charging, so the power is good.

The problem I am having is hearing the music. The issue has something to do with the Ground wire. I wrapped the Ground to the grounding post on the back of the HU, but I would get no sound at all. After checking all of the connections again, I decided to move the ground wire and when I started to move it around, I get crackles and pops, and I now start to hear music fading in and out, depending on if I am barely touching the ground wire to a metal surface.

Here is a pic of the back of the HU....the black wire in the middle is the ground (unattached to anything in this shot).



If i press the wire down to make complete contact with a metal surface, I get no sound. But if I hold it up and just barely touch it, I get music and crackles and stuff. Does anyone know why this is behaving like this? I have some electrical knowledge (albeit limited), but this doesn't really make sense to me.

Thanks for any help! I know I'm close to being able to finish this up, but this has me stumped.

[dmbluebeetle]

Is this radio the original for the car? Or did you get a newer style radio?

From what I understand the 98-2000 radio's were built by Clarion and has a power button off to the right of the volume control and the ones I worked on were built by Delphi from 2001 on which turned on by the volume control knob itself. I don't think Clarion would use a Blaupunkt CD changer, have you looked at your CD changer to see who's name is on it.

[Storm Shadow]

No, this isn't the original radio with the cassette deck.

This is a 2005 in-dash CD player (non-monsoon)....and yes, it turns off by pushing in the Volume knob.

[Storm Shadow]

A little more info...

After some more troubleshooting, I have found that when the ground wire is completely touching metal (grounded), the iPod will get power and charge. Unfortunately, that leads to no sound at all.

As stated above, when I just brush a piece of metal with the ground wire, I will get a brief moment of sound, and then it just fades slowly out. And if the ground isn't touching anything, the iPod also doesn't charge. (which kind of defeats the purpose of this adapter)

I hope some electrical/audio expert can help out here....this seems really odd to me. I don't understand why the Ground for the power would be affecting the sound like this.

Oh, and for completeness' sake, the blue 8-pin plug has 3 wires going into it. In this pic of the pinout, they are going into RCH, GND, and LCH, in the bottom left block.

[dmbluebeetle]

According to my schematics from Delphi, the the center pin labeled "ground" in the blue plug isn't really a ground at all, it is more of a return for the audio. I don't recall Delphi using Blaupunkt for their CD changers, so I'm not sure if your adapter is the right one.

Try removing the center wire from the plug and see if the audio comes back with the ground wire grounded. If the regular ground wire and the center wire are connected then that is where your problem is at.

[Storm Shadow]

Thanks for the response.

I tried your suggestion, but unfortunately that didn't work either. When the ground wire for the power is grounded, there is no sound at all. I tried lifting up the ground wire and just 'brushing' it against metal like I did before (to get temporary sound), but this time there was even less sound. I could hear something, but it was much harder to make out this time with the middle wire removed from the blue plug.

Anything else I can try?

[Storm Shadow]

Problem solved!

I decided to take the 3 wires out of the blue 8-pin plug, and put them in a green 6-pin plug that I had bought a while back when I was thinking of hooking up a Sirius receiver through the AUX inputs.

In the pinout picture i posted above, the 6-pin plug goes into the bottom middle block...or top middle block if looking at back of radio (for anyone looking to do something like this). I put the black wire into GND, the white wire into AUX_L, and the gray (or whatever color it is) wire into AUX_R.

I then grounded the power source, plugged it all in, switched the radio to AUX, and...SUCCESS! The iPod now plays while being charged.

Now i just have to put my center console back in and I think I'm going to have the dock connector come out just below the parking brake.

Thanks for your help, dmbluebeetle. Your suggestion on removing that middle wire got me thinking about moving the wires over to the AUX pins with the other plug I had lying around.

Hopefully this thread will be helpful to anyone else who tries to do something similar.

[dmbluebeetle]

I'm glad it's fixed, I learned something new today.

My schematics for the cassette radio's I worked on don't show a AUX imput on those pins in the green plug. They were to be used for other things. Delphi must have planned for the addition of a plug possibly a USB port in the future and changed the internal circuitry to get ready for it.