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Certainly not a cut and patch in any color wire laying around. Nice work!

Thank you, Brian - I appreciate the kind words

this is the DVR that i was talking about. cost about $425 dellivered from China. It is supposed to do GPS (there is a GPS antenna), supposed to do 3g telemetrics (there is a SIM card holder and a phone antenna), can hold an SD card and a hard drive...

the connector leads that were included were "aviation" type, 4-prong (ground, +12 power, video and audio), but when I bought the mating "aviation" plugs, they turned out to be of a different size... I gave up looking looking for those connectors, and built my own harness using the OE connectors.

This thing is not installed as of yet but I have power already wired up, the harness is built.. there is still a lot of work to do - wiring at least couple of cameras to get started, wire up the monitor to the main car's monitor...

I will keep this thread updated as I progress...

Quote:

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5 (Post 961741)

41. Installed a home made AUX cable as I was too cheap to pay $60 for 3 wires...

parts

61136931929 - the 3-pin connector, about $1.75 from BMW of Fairfax

61130006664 - male pin, comes with about a foot of brown wire attached from a dealer, I use a Digi-Key part (to be inserted)

radio shack part 274-246, about $3, the 3.5 stereo input jack

one 300 KOhm resistor, 1/4 watt is good

two 20 nF capacitors

3 pieces of 20-24 gauge wire - i used black for ground (factory color is brown), red for right and white for left audio channels...

the resistor and the capacitors are the components that will tell the car that the AUX input should be activated -

you will need to solder the resistor between the red and white wire, in parallel, and then, after the resistor connection, closer to the jack, solder the capacitors in series in red and white line individually - one capacitor for the red and one for the white lines... the black wire will be the only one that runs uninterrupted...

I will post the wiring diagram once i get to it... but in verbal description, the resistor is used by the car's stereo system to detect the AUX input (load of 300 KOhm) and the capacitors are used to isolate that resistor from the audio equipment that will be plugged into the jack... very simple...

In my case, I run the wire to the central console, and it is mounted in the tray that held the CDs ( i have the CD brackets removed for another project)

I'm sure you didn't go through all this trouble if you don't have to but... Is there any way to install all this in the trunk and leave the dash alone?

Quote:

Originally Posted by blktoptrvl (Post 974850)

I'm sure you didn't go through all this trouble if you don't have to but... Is there any way to install all this in the trunk and leave the dash alone?

of course there is... the pre-wired connector that is lurking behind the monitor is wired directly to the BM53/54 radio in the trunk, so you would need to locate those pins in the big, square connector that houses three smaller individual connectors, remove those pins and install your pins with your cable going wherever you wish it to go... it is just much simpler to use factory pre-wiring instead of your own...

however, if you do not have BM53/54 and the navigation, that means that you have the business radio in the dash with all the pins behind the dash - so, you still would have to mess with the front dash...

I updated the post that has the item 41 to include the Digi-Key pin numbers and the factory AUX retrofit instructions in PDF (post 33 of this thread)

Quote:

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5 (Post 974908)

Well now, wouldn't you know it... I don't have navigation. So it's plan x for me. Thanks, and good luck with your project.

the PDF file in post 33 has the instructions for your setup too, with the pin numbers... you just save on the factory connector (if building your own cable), as you can use bare pins in existing connector...

in the back of the radio is a big connector that has three individual connectors built in. one of those 3 connectors is black and has 12 pins...

assuming that you have factory harness 65 12 0 153 502 with a 12-pin black plug hanging with 3 wires in it, you will pull the wires with pins from the harness and snap them into existing 12-pin black plug - brown/white (ground) into slot 10, yellow/white (left channel) into slot 3 and blue/white (right channel) into slot 1. if, somehow, your factory radio is missing the black plug altogether, and you have just a blue and white plugs, then you just snap in the black plug that came with the harness, into available slot inside the big connector, that's it...

I have never enjoyed taking apart a dash - or parts thereof. I'd rather do a majoy engine job than to get into those plastics that break and then never fit back together properly (my experience with older cars.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by blktoptrvl (Post 975119)

pulling radio is simpler than taking the whole dash apart... you remove the trim around the radio (shroud/bezel), unscrew some screws... pull the radio, do your connections... put the things back... voila... shroud is press-fitted with snaps, radio is screwed in...

but, if you do not feel that it is something you want to do, just move onto next project - it's just a car, and a hobby, not like your life depends on an AUX input... :D