I emailed Soundgate about the alternator / ground loop problem. Here is their response:


"To be honest I have heard of this from 2 other people in 98 to 2000 maximas
and have gone over some basics of noise control with them but being they
dont have the proper test equipment its very hard to find out were the noise
is coming from. To this day i haven't been able to get a hold of one that
has this problem to find out why. As for noise there can be many reasons one
most hand held devices are not truly single ended (RCA) level they are a op
amp made to drive headphones a 16 ohm load most input stages in a car is
single ended and 10k or so for input impedance what this does is causes very
low current flow and a high probability for noise. Some guys have said when
they unplug it the noise is still there and that would be the inputs picking
up whatever is being radiated around it as it has no signal ground
reference. Now all that being said we are still trying to duplicate this
problem here so i can find a way to fix it as IM sure there is one. Attached
is the pin out for the alns1 in a word doc taking the ground to a good
source might be a good start you could also try referencing the RCA shields
to the back of the deck i hope some of this helps."

Of course they didn't actually include the wiring diagram like he said he did, so I have an email back to them requesting it. We'll see what happens.....

 

hmm.... thanks for the update.

(Santa, I want my iPod!)

 

Has anyone tried the ipod2car (http://www.discountcarstereo.com/)? I was really frustrated with the poor sound quality of the tape deck adapter and I don't like the wires laying around. I just want to be sure it is worthwhile and compatable before I drop $150 on it.

As from what I gathered through the other posts, is the other adapter that you're talking about connect through RCAs? If that is actually te case do you have the wires hanging free or are they mounted into the dash?

 

I don't see any Nissans listed in the manual so it's highly unlikely that it's compatible. The only other product I know off is the Soundgate which is talked about in this thread.

 

hmm i wen to http://www.installer.com/cars/index.html and on the right hand top of their banner.. there is a option to select car model and year.. i picke dt he 98 infiniti and there is an option for my car with the ipod thing.. however my *** replaced my HU with a 99 unit after the 98's cd stopped playing... ****S HIT... soo... now im gonna take out my stereo and take a pic of it.. and show them.. and see if they can determin what i cna use... and i want to contact them.. cause i have an ipod with over 10000 songs jsut begging for my bose system...

 

For those who just want a AUX IN in their stock unit I have found a solution. There is a way to force stock headunit to switch to aux. You will have to take it apart... well at least bottom plate and solder 2 wires. When You will short those wires, the headunit will go into AUX (altho I have not verified if the sound will go in) but I heard hiss through speakers indicating that it will probably work. Ill have to connect something to the IN pins to make sure. AUX IN will remain on untill youll diconnect those two wires. It would be great to make a cardle for your MP3 player with a switch which will close as soon as you insert the player in the cardle turning AUX ON automatically. This is exactly what I need.

Ill let you guys know how it goes.

regards, Bart.

 

im gettin this in a lil bit..

http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/ca...html?sku=MO601

 

I looked at that website and I still don't see the cable required to hook up the auxpod or ipod2car for Nissans or Inifnitis. Am I missing something here?

 

there really isn't anyway to hook an ipod up to your car if you have the SAT radio factory installed. You can use an fm tramitter, modulator, or cassette adaptor but all those have marginal sound quality issues. Were all still waiting on a direct plug n play method.

 

I tried emailing Soundgate today just to see if they had figured out anything as far as the grounding issue is concerned. Here is their response.....


"Ive been able to duplicate the noise with a hand held unit (as there is none with a actual line level out) and found the only way to fix it with a Ipod is to ground the outside rca shield (either one) to the chassis of the radio that has eliminated all noise in the test vehicles here when using headphone outputs.

RCA (OR PHONO PLUGS ) as some call them have a center post and a outside shield the outside shield needs to be referenced to the chassis of your radio this can be done by soldering to the shield or splices into the wire."


So, I havent been able to try this yet, and probaly won't because its supposed to be a high of 10 degrees here. If any of you are a warmer climate and can try this, keep us informed what the results are.

 

hey guys,

I've been reading up on this thread and received a response back from PAC regarding the ipod2car for max's. please see below, mine references 00-02

Unfortunately, nothing is currently available for that “old” of a Maxima by us. Our interface works with the “newer” Maximas that have the satellite radio feature.

Sorry.

Robert Wilson
Vice President of Sales
Pacific Accessory Corporation
(714) 835-3022
www.pac-audio.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Brian Graham [mailto:brian.graham@rogers.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 5:23 PM
To: sales@pac-audio.com
Subject: Ipod2Car for Nissan

I am forwarding this to you as I am assuming that the email I sent this to earlier is affiliated with your company.

Brian

From: Brian Graham [mailto:brian.graham@rogers.com]
Sent: January 9, 2005 6:49 PM
To: 'sales@ipod2car.com'
Subject: Ipod2Car for Nissan

To Whom It May Concern:

I understand this product is not currently available to the Nissan brand. I am looking to see if plans are in the works for a future harness that could adapt to the Maxima 00-02 Bose head unit? It seems that your company and others typically do not have products to connect to the changer port on this head unit, is it a matter of it can’t be done? Or that the market is not there to support it, but it could be done?

Please respond at your convenience.

Best regards,

Brian Graham

 

Raw Toast, do you have any updates?

I installed the NISSAUX this weekend for my XM Roady 2 and all was well until I started driving. I get the whine with the RPM's and it's bad. You seemed to have the RS ground loop isolator but from your post it didn't work.

Have you solved the problem yet?

My first post here. I have been casually lurking for a long time but it's time to join.

 

This was great information for the newer (compared to mine) models. but for my 1995 model, I cannot find any options.

I'm currently connecting pin to pin using a wiring diagram found on http:\\carstereohelp.net/wireharness_Nissan2.htm. but I have to admit that I'm starting to feel beaten.

My Stereo knows that I don't have a real CD changer hooked up. My guess is that it is looking for a sign from one of the other connectors. But I cannot figure out which, and I cannot figure how + or -, or how much voltage.

Any ideas?

 

From what I understand from a different thread on here maybe 2 weeks ago, somebody had success grounding the rca cables themselves to the chassis of the radio. This was the fix that soundgate suggested to me, and while I haven't had a chance to try it out, someone else on here did and said that it basically cut the alternator whine to nothing.

Here is the exact response I got from soundgate. I posted this in a different iPod related thread on here, but this thread seems to be the main iPod thread. so here it is again.....

"Ive been able to duplicate the noise with a hand held unit (as there is none with a actual line level out) and found the only way to fix it with a Ipod is to ground the outside rca shield (either one) to the chassis of the radio that has eliminated all noise in the test vehicles here when using headphone outputs.

RCA (OR PHONO PLUGS ) as some call them have a center post and a outside shield the outside shield needs to be referenced to the chassis of your radio this can be done by soldering to the shield or splices into the wire."

 

Any luck with the aux wiring? Is this on the BOSE?

 

i noticed that there were two plugs on the back of the BOSE unit (for my 98 max). Any idea what the other (circular) plug is for? The other plug is the square one which the AUXNISS plugs into

 

So I kept attempting to get an AUX input for my Bose HU (isn't that the case for everybody). I first looked at the specs of the IC that provides signal from the cassette to the rest of the HU (and found that the level is just right for an auxilliary input), I removed the cassette module, but then I could not manage to guess right the bit sequence in the three-bit output of the said module to trick the rest of the HU in believing that there is a cassette playing in there. This would have been for me (who does not care about cassette at all) the most elegant solution, except that it did not work.

So then I started to investigate the line in this thread. Lo and behold, not only it worked, but I did so without the slightest hitch! For those of you still looking for a solution on the matter, here is how it goes:

As the quoted message says, grounding the AUX-ON pin puts the unit in AUX mode. You only need to remove the bottom plate and you will have access to the main PCB, which is labelled quite nicely. You are interested in the AUX-ON labels, there are two of them actually. Look first for the pins that connect the CD-changer connector to the PCB (in the immediate vicinity of the said connector). You will find there one of those labels; it is not the right one, but keep the connector in mind because we shall need it later. Now keep looking at the back of the PCB, but on the opposite side of the CD-changer connector. You will find another connector that links the main PCB to the front plate controls unit. It is a bit hard to figure out that this is the role of the connector, but it is a connector, is towards the back of the unit, and features another AUX-ON label on the PCB. This is the pin you are looking for. Draw a wire from it, another wire from ground, and put a switch between these. As long as the switch is on the unit goes into AUX mode; once you turn the switch off, the unit turns off and if you turn it back on it will continue to work normally; and so on.

Once this goes well, you have to find the input for the just invented AUX mode. There is not much of a choice, and I found out after a little experimenting that the input is the one from the CD-changer. So go back to that CD-changer connector, draw wires from the pins labelled RCH+, RCH-, LCH+, and LCH- (the names are self-explanatory) and connect those wires to stock RCA cables. There could be that the HU expects differential input, but I did not have the right components handy so I just plugged in the single ended input to see what happens, and good things did happen: the thing works like a charm. The input level is a bit low, but not that low as to really matter. I might build some day a single ended input to differential output unity gain amp to see whether it helps, but these are minor details, the thing just works and I am happy.

All of these work on a PN-2121D Bose head unit (stock on my Maxima 1997 GLE) and I expect them to work on similar models.

In any case, I thought you guys may be interested in hearing about all of this. Hope it is not too late and it does help somebody, this is a rather old thread...

Cheers,
Stefan

P.S. The other connector mentioned in the previous message allows you to connect a cell phone. It si tempting, but the problem is the audio input accomodates only one chanel.

 

any chance you could do some pictures?

I'm very interested in giving this a shot myself, although I really don't have any soldering skills. But I can get someone to do it for me... or do you even need to solder?

if you could get pics of the pins you are using, that would be very helpful. If I decide to do this, I'll make a walkthrough... I've been dying to get rid of my casette adapter.

 

Sorry, it did cross my mind to take pictures... after I closed up the cetre console. I will definitely photograph it next time, but I don't know when the next time will actually be as I am rather busy nowadays. So for the time being you will have to hunt the labels on the PCB, but then it is really easy (all the pins of interest are at the back of the PCB, and the solderings of the CD-changer connector are close to the connector itself ).

By the way, if you can provide a high-res photograph of the PCB board I could easily identify the connectors (and the pins, depending on how good the photograph is) for you.

As for soldering, you definitely need to solder the AUX-ON wire, I see no way around it. You also need a good ground (given the harsh environment in which the device work I would definitely recommend soldering, I did have weird problems with my DVD player untill I soldered each and every wire going into it) and you need the four audio wires (which I personally drew directly from the PCB but which are accessible from the CD-changer connector if you can get hold of a matching plug).

 

So, if you can get your hands on the changer end of the plug, do you still require the AUX-On wire to be soldered? Or, can you simply isolate the L&R + & - wires from that plug and get signal into the head unit? I'd assume you have to select CD/CHGR from the head unit to get signal in...

 

Yes, a wire (and the attached switch) is still needed.
No, the CD changer logic needs an actual changer to talk to, and the protocol is as far as I know yet to be reversed engineered (and once the reverse engineering takes place there is still a need to implement the protocol using an external device). The solution I used does not use any external circuitry except a switch that grounds the mentioned AUX-ON pin. The audio signal is still fed into the CD-changer pins, but the action of convincing the HU to play the said signal is accomplished by grounding a pin that has nothing to do with the CD-changer (and the CD-changer plug).

 

I was successful in adding the AUX input. I have some close up pictures showing exactly what to solder that I will add once i am not on dialup. It sounds so much better than FM modulated input. Pics to come....

 

Ok, here it is, a full writup with pics. http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=411662