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DIY: Hard wire a Parrot CK3100 (i.e., no harness) (for those with after-market amps)

16K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  hound4 
#1 ·
For most people that buy a Parrot the simplest solution is to buy an after-market harness that makes the install plug and play. For those of us that retained the OE head unit and have added an aftermarket amp and speakers (in my case focals all around + an alpine amp) using a harness is not an option because when you combine the parrot (which has a small built in amp) with your after-market amp, the sound is extremely loud / deadening making it so you cannot use the Parrot (yes I tried and yes it really is that loud). Thus, to make the Parrot work you must hard wire it. Here is how.

Thanks to the numerous posts on related topics, which combined, made this install possible.

As always, proceed at your own risk. I accept not responsibility for any damage you cause to your car by following the guide below. This guide is meant to reflect what worked for me and I hope can be helpful to others. My car is a 2002 (Sep manufacture date) 325xi with a “Conector 17 Pines X18126” head unit. If you have the newer pin layout a modified version of this guide in theory should also work (but PINs would be different so check newer PIN layout).

1. Disassemble the following so you can have access to all relevant wires:
Remove trim pieces from dash. Remove glove box. Remove head unit and AC control unit below it (I also removed two vents above and the plastic frame that holds everything to allow very easy access for wiring, etc. You can find guides on how to do this elsewhere. With glove box removed, you will need to access the speaker wires that go to the passenger door. Remove the plastic piece of trim (has two clips as also found in door trim panels). Now you will see the top of a very large round clip, pop this off too. Now you will see a piece of black foam covering the wiring harnesses that go to the passenger door.

2. Hard wire the Parrot to your factory harness.

From head unit “Conector 17 Pines X18126” (diagram available here: http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=586800 otherwise ignore everything at this link) you are interested in PIN 4, 5, 9, and 15. PIN 4 = Phone MUTE (when call comes in will mute head unit if it is on). PIN 5 = 12V Acc and PIN 9 = 12V Dir; PIN 15 = GND.

From Parrot CK3100 you are interested in: From power harness Orange wire (to ignition), Red wire (to battery) and black wire (to ground). From mute harness you are interested in the yellow wire with metal tip (mute) (to mute input), as well as the blue+/green- (right speaker) (and red+/orange-(left speaker)—if you want to wire to both—I didn’t and it’s not necessary). The female part of the harness (with the metal PINs inside) is the output, and the male part of the harness is the input (wire colors are identical).

Connect:

- Parrot orange wire on mute harness TO PIN 5 on head unit harness
- Parrot red wire on mute harness TO PIN 9 on head unit harness
- Parrot black wire on mute harness TO PIN 15 on head unit harness
- Parrot yellow wire with metal tip on mute harness TO PIN 4 on head unit harness

You can now test to see if Parrot powers on and off correctly with ignition, and test to see if “PHONE” appears on stereo when stereo is on and you make and receive a call. Obviously you won’t have any sound because you have not connected the Parrot to the speaker wires.

3. Connect Parrot mute harness wires to factory wires to speaker AFTER your after-market amp

Cut the factory speaker wires to the main speaker (woofer) in the passenger door. You will find these in the wiring harness you exposed that goes from next to the glove box to the passenger door. The two wires you are interested in can be found on the upper part of the harness and they are of a thicker gauge than the other wires in the upper part of the harness.

You are interested in the Blue wire with Brown stripe (-) (this is wire from PIN #22 in your factory amp harness in trunk, which you presumably disconnected and ran through a line out converter when you installed your after-market amp). You also want the Blue wire with Red stripe (+) (this is wire from PIN #23 from factory amp harness in trunk). These two wires go to your front woofer.

Cut the Blue/Brown wire and the Blue/Red wire described above.

Using two pieces of similar gauge speaker wires, wire the factory Blue/Brown and Blue/Red wires through the Parrot:

Connect Blue/Brown and Blue/Red wires COMING FROM TRUNK to Parrot input:
- Blue/Brown (-) from trunk to Green (-) wire on male (input) Parrot mute harness
- Blue/Red (+) from trunk to Blue (+) wire on male (input) Parrot mute harness

Now connect output Parrot mute harness:
- Green (-) wire on female (output) Parrot mute harness to Blue/Brown (-) going to passenger door woofer
- Blue (+) wire on female (output) Parrot mute harness to Blue/Red (+) going to passenger door woofer.

What you have done is forced the factory line to front passenger door woofer to go through the Parrot mute harness before going to the passenger door woofer. This allows the Parrot mute harness to “cut” the line from the amp to speaker when a call comes in. When a call comes in, the Parrot cuts the line from amp and then outputs (via female part of harness you just connected) to the front passenger door speaker with audio from your call. You CANNOT just splice into the factory speaker wires to the front door as you would be crossing the Parrot output lines with the after-market amp output lines, and could burn out both your amp and your Parrot (I think)—at a minimum sound quality would be terrible for at least the Parrot as you’d be crossing two lines—DON’T DO THIS!

You are done with all the wiring. You can place the blue “brain” of the parrot behind the glove box (there is plenty of room, I zip tied the brain to the huge bundle of wires to the left and below the fuse box). I put my Parrot mute and power harness on the passenger side of the factory head unit as the wires aren’t too long (i.e., to be able to reach the head unit wiring harness). Do whatever works for you. In retrospect I would have put all pieces of the Parrot (mute harness, etc.) down with the brain and ran extension wires for connecting to head unit as there isn’t too much space next to head unit). You can run mic up to lights and factory mic location in roof of car by following the trim along the windshield to roof. Putting parrot mic in factory mic location doesn’t provide very good results, so I have mic just stick out of side—not too noticeable and produces great mic results.

Now test the Parrot and stereo. Everything should be working. You could wire the Parrot to the drive side woofer so you have audio from both speakers during a call, but this would require more wiring and cutting and trim removal, which really isn’t needed (Parrot audio is just fine with only one speaker). If everything works, reassemble trim, glovebox, etc. and you are done.

Be sure to properly connect wires (I didn’t solder anything, but in theory you could if you are really anal). Use electrical tape to properly seal all connected wires!

Please ask if you have any questions… I unfortunately didn’t take any photos.
Note that you DO NOT need to mess with PIN 10 “TEL ON / (Speed Signal)” in the “Conector 17 Pines X18126”—this is only needed if you are trying to do the factory blue tooth wiring (which I don’t even think you can do with the Parrot CK3100).
 
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