DIY E46 Aux Bluetooth connection

Hi All

First post, hope you like it

I have been after a way to stream my tunes from iphone to standard business stereo with 6 cd changer. Up tlil now I have been using a jabra SP7000 handfree which has a built in FM transmitter, and ultimately I didnt use it because it needed retuning every few miles when radio stations faded in and out.

I found a few solutions on ebay between £30 for a CD changer to RCA\headphone adapter to £80 for a CD changer to SD card \ USB Stick adapter:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Then I came across this thread on these forums

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=427248

Thing is I didnt want it physically connected with the cables everywhere, or should I say couldnt be bothered to route the cables neatly. So taking the above idea of coming off the CD changer, I combined it with this little gem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

to make a "bluetooth cd changer". Simply soldered the cables as described in the above guide to the RCA inputs of the bluetooth adapter, and a small mod to the box to allow the cable out. Luckily I already had a 10 pin IDE cable so didnt need to cut a 40 pin one up.

Just finished it tonight, will test at weekend. Worst case scenario is I mixed up the pin assignments but ill let you know how well it works!!

Heres some photos:
http://img59.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=photofh.jpg

Looks really interesting... do post your results once you've tried it!

GL!

Interested in seeing results, and your opinion of how well it operates..

UPDATE...

Well good news and bad news. As a principle it works very well- i.e. bluetooths conneciton was fine, powered from brown (earth) and purple/white (swicthed 12v) from the OEM wiring harness. With a little trimming of the plastic edges the 10 pin IDE fit nicely in the OEM CD changer socket, and transferred the audio correctly from phone.

However the quality of the audio was not good. Very distored.

So to test where the problem lay I hooked up the 12v power to a molex connector in my PC and used the proper RCA out to my amp (which is pretty neat in itself - a bluetooth amplifier!) but still poor audio. So next I unsoldered my additional IDE cable so see if that was generating interference. Still no good.

So my conclusion is either a faulty Bluetooth to RCA adapter, its a poor quality bluetooth audio chip, or I have damaged the pcb or chips when I soldered the wires (perhaps too much heat) but I doubt this as the RCA connecters are a far way away from the chips.

I am going to try and get a replacement adapter from the ebay seller and try again...

Otherwise this would have worked flawlessly in terms of connectivity!

Originally Posted by parody

UPDATE...

Well good news and bad news. As a principle it works very well- i.e. bluetooths conneciton was fine, powered from brown (earth) and purple/white (swicthed 12v) from the OEM wiring harness. With a little trimming of the plastic edges the 10 pin IDE fit nicely in the OEM CD changer socket, and transferred the audio correctly from phone.

However the quality of the audio was not good. Very distored.

So to test where the problem lay I hooked up the 12v power to a molex connector in my PC and used the proper RCA out to my amp (which is pretty neat in itself - a bluetooth amplifier!) but still poor audio. So next I unsoldered my additional IDE cable so see if that was generating interference. Still no good.

So my conclusion is either a faulty Bluetooth to RCA adapter, its a poor quality bluetooth audio chip, or I have damaged the pcb or chips when I soldered the wires (perhaps too much heat) but I doubt this as the RCA connecters are a far way away from the chips.

I am going to try and get a replacement adapter from the ebay seller and try again...

Otherwise this would have worked flawlessly in terms of connectivity!

have you tried connecting it to a home stereo and seeing how it sounds?

Originally Posted by sycE46

have you tried connecting it to a home stereo and seeing how it sounds?

Yup, thats the plugging into my amp bit! (An Arcam AVR350).

Nothing will ever beat a wired connection of course. But I know what an a2dp connection should sound like and this was not it! (have had car stereo with built in BT a2dp before and several sets of BT open and in-ear headphones)

I just looked up the a2db spec, and audio streams at 768kbps. I very much doubt anyone has mp3's encoded that high or higher so A2DP should be of comparable quality to a direct connection, assuming no signal drop outs.

bluetooth audio streaming is not going to sound reliably as good as a wired in aux port