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Old 05-09-2010, 11:45 AM
G4tsoman G4tsoman is offline
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iPhone Snap In for charging + audio - MOD

Hi there

Thought I would share this mod I have just done in my 535D - basically it breaks a 'line out' out of the iPhone snapin and allows that to be plugged into the Aux-In jack - therefore allowing charging of the iPhone *and* listening to audio.

I do have a couple of pretty bad photos of the soldering which I can send over on request.

Apologies if this has already been done - I searched high and low and couldn't find anyone who had done it. So.......




BMW iPhone Snap-In Aux Audio Mod


This mod will allow you to have your iPhone charging in your armrest snap in, with it at the same time attached to your ‘AUX’ input jack. In my 535D LCI this is just behind the armrest between the two air vents. As always you do this mod at your own risk – some of the soldering needs to be very precise and too much may short pins and lead to unpredictable results! Of course it also goes without saying that this mod will invalidate the warranty on your snap-in.

What you need

· Soldering iron with a fine tip + solder
· iPhone snap in (I used 84.21-2 158 682-01 for my non 6NF AND non 6NL car)
· Fine cable (I used a network cable chopped up)
· Small Philips head screwdriver
· A cable with a 3.5mm stereo jack on one end and bare ends on the other (I bought a jack-jack cable and chopped one end off)
· Insulating tape


How to

1. Unscrew the snap in. You need to pop it open at the top and the bottom from the clips
2. Locate where the ribbon cable from the iPod connector meets the board. Here you need to tin pins 1,9,13 and 14 with a tiny dab of solder
3. Tin four of the thin cables and attach them to the pins you just tinned. Watch out for pins 13 and 14 – they are very close!!
4. Take these cables up and into the hollow bit where the antenna cable comes out of the snap in. Solder the cables from pins 1 and 9 together and take a new feed from this solder joint. Therefore you end up with three cables – one from 1+9, one from 13 and one from 14. These three cables are Ground, Right and Left audio respectively.
5. Solder the bare ends of your jack cable lead to these three cables. Ensure that ground is connected to the ‘sleeve’ of the jack, left to the tip and right to the ring.
6. To create an exit for this lead, melt a tiny slot in the left side of the snap-in so that your jack lead can escape. I tied a knot in the cable just before it left the snap in to prevent it getting pulled – plenty of room in there.
7. Pin seven of the connector on the snap in needs to be disabled in order for all of this to work. To do this, I cut a tiny piece of insulation tape and placed it over the metal part of the ribbon cable on pin seven – see picture.
8. You may now test this by placing your iPhone in the cradle. It should come up with the ‘This accessory is not made to work with iPhone’ warning.
9. Now reassemble the snap in, and place back in your car. Neatly run the jack lead out of the glove box and plug into the jack socket. There is no doubt a mod to place an aux jack in the armrest. If so, even better – no trailing wires!
10. Now you can play your iPhone music on ‘Aux’ while charging your phone in the handset! Obviously there is no iDrive integration at all but hey – even when I had my old Audi A4 Cab I never used the car integration with my old Dension – way too clunky!