For those of you with a cubby [above the headunit] mounted phone/GPS... where did you guys drill the hole for the wire? (i.e. towards the front or back? bottom surface or the right wall of the cubby?)

Also, what am I supposed to use to prevent the wire from slipping through the drilled hole and being lost in the abyss forever? I'm hoping to make this a clean install; if you guys have pics of the wiring (don't really need pics of the mount as I might just drill two small screws in the cubby lid) I'd greatly appreciate it.

Lastly, since I have no experience with wires and soldering; I've decided that for power, I will connect my phone charger in the arm rest then route the wire to the upper cubby. How long should the USB cable be to be efficient? Can I use a curled wire [as I already have an OEM car charger with curled wire attached] or do I have to buy an extended straight USB cable?

Thank you in advance.

 

Put the hole where it won't be seen, towards the "front" of the cubby (so towards the rear of the car) towards (not on) the bottom, since you want to keep the bottom solid. Keep the connectors from falling through by cutting a piece large enough for the connector out, notching that piece of it for the cable, and then glue the larger chunk back in place.

Soldering would be a far better option, and soldering two wires together is about as easy as it gets, so it's a good opportunity to learn. Just pick up an add-on cigarette lighter socket and solder it to the cigarette lighter socket's power wires.

 

Great, thanks for the tip. What would I need to cut a piece of the cubbyhole out? What type of glue is best to putting the large portion back together?

I was simply going to drill a hole but this method seems like a much better alternative.

I dont have any of the necessary tools to properly solder and would rather practice elsewhere before I do something on the G even though its gonna suck making yet another hole in there lol.

Anyone got pics of their wire and/or hole/cut out?

 

A Dremel with a cut-off wheel (medium duty works well cutting the plastic in these cars) is the best for cutting the piece out. Remove the cubby from the radio bracket completely and figure out the smallest you can cut it to get the smallest connector from either side of the wire through. Notch the piece enough that the wire can go through, and then use masking tape on the inside of the cubby to hold the piece in place with the wire threaded through. Hot melt glue (high temp *not low-temp) the piece back in place from behind (the masking tape also prevents the glue from leaking inside) and allow to dry.

If you want to practice soldering, just get some wires, cut them and re-solder them back together until you feel comfortable.

Sorry, no pictures of anything I've recommended here.

 

Thanks man. Can anyone point me in the right direction when it comes to removing the cubby?

 

Just follow the normal headunit removal instructions and unscrew the cubby from the thing once the radio bracket and such is removed.

 

Luckily I found a friend who is willing to let me use his dremel this coming weekend. I will go ahead and post the results afterwards; hopefully all goes well.

I did have one final question about the aPAC-NIS1 unit itself though; I saw some "DIP" switches on it and am not entirely sure what position they should be. Here's a picture of what I'm talking about. If anyone can clear this up for me I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

 

Finally got some time to do the install and I am very content with the results. Although it took me a very long time to complete this (about 5-6 hours with breaks in between) I think it was very well worth my time.

Thought I'd share some pics:

I couldn't find a good car mount for my phone (mytouch 4g) so I bought a holster and snapped off the belt clip from the back. Used a dremel to shave off the protruding plastic pieces -- didn't even have to sand down afterwards.



Almost crapped myself when I saw what I had done.. but I knew there was no turning back..



Thought about doing a hardwire to cigarette lighter but figured it would just be easier to drill a hole into the armrest cubby.



Got two small screws with hex nuts. Had to do a little modifying to the phone holster to get these screws to be flush. It was a pain getting the 4 tiny screws off the upper cubby lid (mainly the two near impossible to find screws inside it. Didn't have a small enough screw driver so I ended up using a drill bit.



This is the part where I messed up. I had the right idea.. just not the right equipment. Unfortunately the dremel I borrowed from my friend only came with one large cutter.. had to cut a fairly large box out. Couldn't really put it back together evenly so I just used a lot of Krazy Glue, small metal strip + Krazy Glue, and a bunch of tape. I'm hoping this piece doesn't pop in/out in the future.. that would suck. Luckily it's hidden..



End result.. I like it.

 

Sub'd for later use!

 

how do you take the cubby lid off???? I want to take mine off to mod it or if you are replacing it how do you take it off?nThx

 

bump for audio check!

just ordered the pac-nis1 for my 06 coupe with bose system... hows yours sound?

I'll be using my HTC Thunderbolt for music and just want to know what you think of the volume\quality etc. I've read it's great from some and that it is awful from others... your take?

Thanks!

 

i know i'm a couple months late but you can take off the cubby lid by unscrewing the 4 impossible to find screws below the lid


as for the audio quality.. lets just say, you will have 0 bass and the volume will be lower than the radio. however, you can download an app on your phone (i use equilizer) to boost audio output from your phone -- however, this doesn't help with bass as increasing the bass from ur phone will just make the music unclear.

this setup is perfect if you want to hear some mellow music while driving at average volume.. but if you want to blast it.. i'd recommend using CDs as they output the best quality i've experienced.