Oldie but a goodie folks. I can not take credit for this as I read it elsewhere but the principal is the same for most 03-06 expys w/ OEM 6 disk in dash changer w/ rear dvd player. Sorry if this has been done before, but I'll be darned if I could find it out there, other than expensive ready made units. And now with the '06 Expys getting old, not sure how much help this would be. I've done Pioneer Avics and stuff and just really didn't want to go with an aftermarket radio again.
The rear DVD has an AUX setting in the factory radio and the dvd player itself has rca inputs on it. I have seen many people run extended rca cables to the rear dvd to plug in an ipod or other accessory. Just press AUX on the radio twice and you got your tunes on the radio! Easy fix but leaves lots of wires hanging around from the ceiling.
So I started out with the idea to splice in the female RCAs behind the radio so I could plug in an ipod harness out of sight and leave the ipod in the cubby hole in front of the cup holders. Figured it would need power to charge it also so was going to splice in a USB charging port. Lots of problens with this, as the Ipod isn't controlled by the OEM radio it would never turn off or on with the stereo and would always have to be accessible to skip songs or whatever. Bummer. So snooping around the web I someone mentioned no one uses Ipods any more (my kids have been telling me this for years!) and I should install Bluetooth. Mind blown.
I found a Bluetooth dongle made by millennia. It has a power and a ground and 2 rca plugs. So I soldered in two female rca plugs to the factory radio dvd harness and tapped the keyed power wire from the radio main harness. This would actually allow you to be able to plug in any rca device to the factory radio to play music through the aux button.
I plugged in the Bluetooth dongle and screwed in the ground to a piece of metal behind the radio. Downloaded all my music to my phone and now my phone streams music WIRELESSLY!!!! I guess if you have unlimited data you could just use Pandora or whatever. Will do audio only, no phone calls or GPS directions (actually haven't tried GPS yet) Mind blown again. Anyway see if y'all can make sense of my pics. Works great. Has a little hiss at high volume.
The rear DVD has an AUX setting in the factory radio and the dvd player itself has rca inputs on it. I have seen many people run extended rca cables to the rear dvd to plug in an ipod or other accessory. Just press AUX on the radio twice and you got your tunes on the radio! Easy fix but leaves lots of wires hanging around from the ceiling.
So I started out with the idea to splice in the female RCAs behind the radio so I could plug in an ipod harness out of sight and leave the ipod in the cubby hole in front of the cup holders. Figured it would need power to charge it also so was going to splice in a USB charging port. Lots of problens with this, as the Ipod isn't controlled by the OEM radio it would never turn off or on with the stereo and would always have to be accessible to skip songs or whatever. Bummer. So snooping around the web I someone mentioned no one uses Ipods any more (my kids have been telling me this for years!) and I should install Bluetooth. Mind blown.
I found a Bluetooth dongle made by millennia. It has a power and a ground and 2 rca plugs. So I soldered in two female rca plugs to the factory radio dvd harness and tapped the keyed power wire from the radio main harness. This would actually allow you to be able to plug in any rca device to the factory radio to play music through the aux button.
I plugged in the Bluetooth dongle and screwed in the ground to a piece of metal behind the radio. Downloaded all my music to my phone and now my phone streams music WIRELESSLY!!!! I guess if you have unlimited data you could just use Pandora or whatever. Will do audio only, no phone calls or GPS directions (actually haven't tried GPS yet) Mind blown again. Anyway see if y'all can make sense of my pics. Works great. Has a little hiss at high volume.
