Some preliminary feedback to my Double Din conversion and AVH-6800DVD install I started tonight (around 7:30PM):

1. I'm scared to try and de-solder and re-solder the dual climate control button. I think I'm going to wait till Tuesday when a guy I work with who is an awesome solderer gets back from vacation. The solder points are just reallllly tiny and I'm not that great at it.

2. I've disassembled and reassembled the dash about 5 times now, so it only took me about 15 minutes to get the entire dash "unit" (for lack of a better word) into the house to start disassembling.

3. Removing the plastic stock finisher and replacing it with the DD finisher was easy, took about 6 screws.

4. Disassembling the stock circuit board so I could see the DUAL button that had to be de-soldered was also easy. But that's where I stopped (see #1)

5. The AVH6800 fits into the din cage that the stock radio sat in, and on each side 2 of the 4 screw holes on the 6800 can be made to line up with stock screw holes in the cage. All 4 (on each side) will not line up.

6. The 6800 does not fill up the entire opening of the double din hole. The 6800 comes with a black plastic trim piece. Sanding this by far took the longest amount of time out of any step I've done so far. In the end, I'm happy with how it turned out however. I just took my time (sanded, test fitted, sanded, test fitted, rinse repeat)

7. Programming the TR-7 was really easy. I used a bench 12v power supply I use with my car PC projects to supply it the 12v necessary while programming it. All in all it took me about 5 minutes to program it. Now when it gets 12v on it's input wire (I'll use a relay on the amp-turn-on lead of the 6800 as the input), it waits 10 seconds and then begins outputting 12v on it's output wire. This output wire will be connected the 6800's +12v parking brake lead.

8. Diversity-to-aftermarket antenna adapter works perfectly, very straight forward.

I realized I forgot to order a metra wiring harness, so I'm going to try and find one tomorrow locally (going to check bestbuy, circuit city, advance auto parts, pep boys, Tweeter and another local audio shop).

All I really have left to do is find the harness, solder the wires and throw the whole thing back into the dash. Assuming all works well, I'll be disassembling it and getting the AC controller back out come middle of next week.

 

Oh, I also briefly looked at the plugs in my dash and tried to determine which plug the instructions for the PAC SWI-X are referring to, but I was having a hard time locating it. Anyone have any idea which plug in the dash has the steering wheel wires in it? Supposedly I'm connecting a resistor to a red wire and another resistor to a green wire, but haven't found which plug they are referring to yet.

 

So, that would definitely one-up me; what are you putting the AVH in for, with the CarPC to do most anything the AVH could do...

Dave

 

Lol. this is not my ace in the hole to make you cry yourself to sleep You won't see that one for another few months.

My stock deck was doing the flakey speakers going in and out crap, so instead of screw with having the dealership replace it (and complain about my DW screen, etc), only to possibly have it fail again down the road, I scored an amazing deal on a 6800.

I went with the 6800 for a few reasons (I'm in a numbering mood tonight):

1.) It doesn't have NAV, so I'm not duplicating one of the strongest features of the CarPC with some 1/2 azzed car audio nav system

2.) It has a 6 disc DVD/CD/MP3 changer in dash. So I don't lose my 6 disc changer functionality (which I don't use as much as I used to now that I have the carPC, but it's more about not losing functionality that I had with the stock deck. No one step backwards to take two steps forwards).

3.) I was looking for a better quality input to the sound system. The PAC-AAI-NIS2 worked, but it wasn't quite up to par for my tastes.

4.) I can now have movies playing on the 6800 and have the carPC available for use in other things (NAV, etc).

5.) I think the double din screen type decks look really stock in our cars, so I was willing to give up the classy stock look of the Bose deck for the AVH-6800 "stock-esque" look

6.) I like all the other neat features that comes with it. For example, the on-screen manipulation of an ipod (I have a nano). Thinking about getting the ipod interface and JML Audio's slick concealed center console ipod mount (just another "feature" in the entire entertainment/PC system). I also like the really cool and really useless Vehicle Data Processor addon it has available.

7.) I like the bluetooth phone integration, partially because who knows when Streetdeck will release their solution and also because with the carPC hooking into the sound system through the 6800, the carPC, DVDs, EVERYTHING should mute down if I get a phone call.

8.) It's excessive

9.) I feel it adds an extra level of "robustness" to the system, and also solves the Bose/Clarion related issues I was having.

10.) Why not

 

Nice Amthar...You will be getting a PM from me soon when i buy all my stuff for my system....Got any pics of ur install?

 

Nice. Post some pics when you are through. Did you end up using the Helix RCA's from that link I gave you? I just got mine. They are nice wires.

 

I'll try and take some pics. I have a helluva time taking inside pictures of stuff like this, they never turn out right.

I didn't use the Helix wires mainly because I'm a lazy idiot who never ordered them. I'm using some cheapy RCAs right now, but I am going to orderthose Helix wires come Tuesday and swap out the cheapy ones.

Up next: removing the PAC-AAI-NIS2 and Soundgate line driver I have for it while I wait for my buddy to come over and drive me around looking for that wiring harness.

 

Ok, I suppose those are good reason...

Anyways, I will probably eventually do something similar down the line, although I will go with an Alpine product (probably the IVA-W200) so I can use and control the PXA-H701, and run my carPC input as an optical line straight into the PXA.

Thats my ace-in-the-hole...

Of course, that all has to wait for me to get my JWT TT kit, whenever it finally gets CARB'ed.

Dave

 

Long day, slow and steadily chugged along.

Found the harness at Tweeter, and they only raped me for $16 for it. Ran two sets of RCAs to the trunk, even though I'm only running front speakers right now... figure it was better than ripping the whole thing apart later in case I change my mind Also ran an amp-turn on.

Wired up the TR-7 and it's successfully bypassing the motion video protection on the 6800. Also wired up and programmed the SWI-X. SWI-X does not perform as badily as I was expecting, so that's good.

Two things about the SWI-X I dislike when using it with the 6800:

1. The 6800's remote uses the same button for power and changing modes (sources), so there is no way to turn off the unit from the steering wheel. As a compromise, I mapped the "POWER" button on the steering wheel to the "ATT" (attenuate, aka mute). Only time I hit the power on the steering wheel is when I'm answering the phone, so this wasn't so bad.

2. The 6800's remote uses two different buttons to skip between tracks of a CD and skip between stations you have programmed. I decided to go with changing stations vs. changing tracks because I do that a whole lot more frequently.

Right now the center dash "unit" is slid into place, it just needs some fiddling to get it into proper seating/final placement. It's too dark for that right now and I believe I need someone to help organize some wires behind the unit while I push it back because it seems to not want to go all the way back right now (ALMOST goes all the way back though).

Only thing left to do is completely disassemble the whole thing again and solder on the DUAL button I think I'll wait a bit before doing that

All in all I'm very happy. It's been a long day, so I'm going to go get drunk now.

 

Hopefully, you do the soldering after recovering from getting drunk! Good luck.

Dave

 

Call me stupid, but don't you need 3 sets of RCA's? One for the fronts, one for the rears, and one for the sub (if you are using a seperate channel for the sub).

 

The JL 500/5 he is using can take a single l/r source and output it to 5 channels.

 

Good stuff so far man, I've actually been busy all day with my install of the Avic-z1 and accessories, I'm callin it for a night to go drink also, but I'll be lookin forward to seein how your install comes out as I should be down in the next day or so. Quick question though. I don't have a problem soldering the dual button on mine, but my only issue is getting the circuit board to come off of the front panel. It seems to get stuck on the temperature control ****. Can you help me on this one? thanks

freddie

 

Hmmm. Interesting. I've never really looked at the 500/5, so that is news to me.

 

Only thing is that you wouldn't have fader control or individual sub control if you only use one set of RCA's.