Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

**EDIT** 01/05/2011
Another Kind member found a better way to do this and I highly recommend that route if your stereo has the test pins. I don't know how i missed them, but its much easier to use the 3 pin connector on the test pins than soldering capactiors.

Link to that thread.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lex...ml#post6041548
*********

So most of us know about the Nack hack. if you don't search for it.

Well if you are like me and your CD changer doesn't work at all, you know that hacking the cd player input does us no good, because there needs to be a working changer attatched for the head unit to play the signal.

well, I really wanted to listen to my ipod, so i decided to go another route.
I successfully hacked my tape player and now you can too without the days of experimentation I had to go through.

I had to solder, it may be possible to get away without soldering, but I cannot think of a good quality/reliable way not to.

Do this at your own risk. I am not responsible for you breaking your headunit. consider this as informational only. I am simply saying what I did.
if you need help/have any questions just ask.

***THIS WILL CAUSE THE TAPE PLAYER TO NO LONGER PLAY TAPES***

***I have the non nakamichi head unit. while i would guess the tape part is the same on both of them, please realize I have not seen inside of one****
someone can confirm if it looks the same later.

first I got one good 'ol USDM SC 300/400 cd player. non nakamichi pioneer.


Then I popped the top off carefully, taking care not to break the plastic tabs at the front of the faceplate


Now with the top off you will see the whole unit w/tape player attached.
The red circle is the 2 capacitors that are of interest to us.



another angle with the tape player part actually removed.



These two capacitors are for the left and right signal line.
I traced these myself from the dolby digital op-amp pinouts I found online from that IC chip in the bottom right corner. these are after the processing of the line level which means these signals have some amplification (dolby processed at 24db's if i remember correctly) right before they hit the amplifier. Perfert for our ipods.

you dont want it before this because it will go through the processing circuit and sound like carp. believe me, I tried it.

so now you're wondering, thats great, what do i do with these 2 capacitors???

Dont remove/throw away the capacitors!! you need them. You are only removing one terminal of the capacitor from the board. see post 9 for a picture.
the side with the blue dots is the side of the capacitor I disconnected from the green board. I did this by heating up the solder and pulling up gently with a plier. One could also simply cut the wire, but I just pulled it so there would be no chance of the 2 halves touching.

once I had these disconnected, I soldered a wire onto each one, and ran the wires out of back corner of the head unit. I then routed these wires down to the console area, where I attatched them to a female 1/8 stereo plug. dont forget the plug will need a ground so I found a suitable one for it (like the side of the radio case or somewhere in the console). do not connect it to any ground inside the stereo. Now I simply got a male to male headphone jack for my ipod and I was enjoying crystal clear mp3's in my car.

I would recommend getting a cable that has a line level out via the dock connector. I got one which had that and a usb line for charging. I will warn everyone though that when charging the ipod and playing the stereo at the same time there is the slightest hum sound, which comes from the processor circuit inside the ipod contaminating the signals. It doesnt bother me cause its not very loud.
solution is to ignore it like me, or always have your ipod charged.
you canuse a ground loop isolator at the cost of alot of sound quality.
***when not charging and just playing everything is crystal clear***

There needs to ba a tape in the tape player. Remember it thinks its playing the tape still. I hardwired my usb charger into the acessory line behind the console so all plugs are hidden.
I figured out a way even to trick the tape player so that it never flips over. dont bother cutting your motors like other forums may say, its not necessary. I will post pictures of it later cause its way too hard to describe.

the only side effect is that whatever you have playing on this line will come through on all head unit modes. so lets say you are playing you ipod on tape mode, then you hit fm mode. your headunit will play both. the solution is to simply press pause or if you cannot stop it simply unplug it. a very small sacrifice for crystal clear mp3's. oh and the headunit looks cool in tape mode. the buttone light up all different. I kind of dig it myself.
enjoy. I think thats most of it anyways.

****** edit: added better picture below and on page 2 of the setup

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

still works pretty well, but being swapped out for a nav unit.

LexusFTW

iTrader: (7)

Great work! This is the first time I've seen this thread. Do you have any pictures of the wires soldered to the board?
How did you make keep the tape from flipping over?

Caoboy

iTrader: (2)

Done.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

haha, yeah those tape adapters sound like carp.

In my setup, you never convert the music into another format like the tape adapter does. I find the bass and overall quality is pretty bad with the adapter.

LexusFTW, I think I have some detailed pics on my laptop i will have to find.
most of it is pictured in the thread though. I actually have my unit if you want it, I took it out for the nav unit but it worked pretty well.

to keep the tape from flipping over, you take an ordinary tape and mod it.
you open it up, take all the tape off the reels, cut a small section of it and tape it in place and tape it at the bottom, where it is read by the head.
the tape deck will turn the 2 round things, but they will spin forever since the tape isnt attatched to it anymore, and it will never flip over!

for the soldering, basically once capacitor is the left channel and one is the right channel, so you solder a wire to each one of those and run it out the back of the case. you will also need a ground which you can just put a wire to a screw in the side of the case. you connect all those 3 to a jack connector so you can plug in whatever you want. you can hide it or even flush mount it somewhere.
and leave the capacitors in, they are necessary for conditioning the signal.

LexusFTW

iTrader: (7)

I'd love to take it but I have Nak in the SC

Thanks for the info

Just to clarify...
In your original post you say to disconnect the capacitors but really you solder the wire to one side of each capacitor and leave them connected to the board. Correct?
Also, you solder the wire to the side of the capacitor with the blue dot. Correct again?

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

Correct, i originally removed them but found they are necessary.
the side without the blue dot (the side facing the front face of the stereo) you can just leave as is connected to the board.

the side facing the rear of the stereo (with the blue dots) would be the side you disconnect from the board and connect your left or right signal to.
this is the side coming from the tape deck after processing, and ready to be output, so you are disconnecting the tape signal and putting in your own signal basically.

so side facing the front you leave alone, side of caps facing the rear you disconnect and insert your own signal.

Can you take a pic for me when you open your Nak one up.
I just want to make sure that part looks the same.
If It doesnt I can describe how to trace the signal.

you should be able to follow the side you leave connected, the silver trace should make its way to the front edge of the green board, where it should dead end into the widest ribbon connector (bottom right of last picture)

in fact, if you flip the board upside down (and seperate it from the metal housing which is a PITA!) all the signals are actually labeled underneath that ribbon connector, which I found out much much later on.

bodydrager

iTrader: (4)

Are the 2 capacitors really that important? I did the hack but removed them by pulling the capacitor using a pair of pliers and the terminals came completely out of the capacitor. So are they really that important or will I need to source 2 new capacitors to replace them.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

i sent you a PM.

you should get some more caps. i dont think i said to throw them away.
its easiest to leave the front terminal on the board and solder your wire to the other terminal, like this diagram below i drew.

or you can have the wire go straight to the board, and put the caps anywhere along the wire.

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

pretty sure the capacitor is not there for signal conditioning... typically capacitors are used in audio systems as passive crossovers...

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

there are a billion things you can use capacitors for.
you want the signal line to act as an open circuit when you insert the head jack for a split second, and gradually build up to a closed circuit. That is what a capacitor does. this technique is called a power capacitor or decoupling capacitor. without it, if you have the volume turned up, you will clip and damage other audio components when inserting and removing the audio jack.
read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_capacitor

And yes, capacitors are used for crossovers, which is not what these capacitors are doing. trust me, you need them. I have built power amplifiers from scratch before.

Blanco

iTrader: (8)

Got any instructions/diagrams/pics of how you connect the 3 wires to a jack? Where do you get the jack? Radio Shack? Which one to get?

I can't wait to try this mod out!!!!

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

radio shack has them. they will have 3 terminals, left, right, and ground.
left and right will go to the respective capacitors, and the ground you will run to the side of the case or even better the metal cage in the console (its all one big ground, in fact you can probably find where some factory wires are grounded in this area and use the same bolt).

If you are having troubles finding the caps on the nav unit when you open it up just post some high res pics up and i'll see if I can point you in the right direction.

abounly

iTrader: (27)

I would like to attempt this but it seems confusing for me.

Remove only ONEcapacitors?
solder the wire, just any wire?
then just find a female 1/8 plug and solder the wire from the capacitor to the female plug?
Plug needs to be grounded? Does the female plug come with a grounder wire?

i have NEVER worked with anything wires/electronics. Is it pretty easy? If you can can you provide me pictures with the unit itself so i can follow that?

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

Did you look at the diagrams? there are pictures of the unit in the first post?
and in bold writing it says not to remove the capacitors. for both capacitors, you only disconnect one side from the board, like shown in the diagram. to these 2 terminals you have disconnected (1 for each capacitor) you connect some automotive speaker wire or any shielded wiring for that matter (these are now your left and right wires). radioshack sells different types of speakerwire, ask for the one with 3 wires in it.

the Third wire is ground for the jack and you do not connect it inside the stereo, you connect it to a ground in the console, like i explained above. so the 2 wires you connected to the capacitors are run down to wherever you want to put your plug, and then the third wire is the ground for the plug.

the plug can be female or male, really depends on the setup you want. with a male jack you can plug it right into your ipod. with a female jack you need an extra male to male cord to connect an mp3 player, which is what i liked cause if anything happens to that wire, you can easily disconnect it.

It will be difficult if you have never picked up a soldering iron before. if you can solder some wires together it is pretty easy. all in all I soldered 5 things. the 3 wires to the jack, and the left and right to their respective capacitors. the ground for the jack I just wrapped around a ground bolt and screwed it down tight (although you could solder on a proper washer style connector to do the same thing).