Head Unit reserve accessory power

[egsmachine]

is the circuit to maintain radio power built in to the factory head unit or is there a seperate circuit for it?

 

[GreenMando]

It is in the wiring harness.

 

[egsmachine]

It is in the wiring harness.

cool, i'll test for it unless you know which wire it is. Also, can it be tied directly to the switched power lead (red, usually) of the aftermarket unit or do i need to do a diode to isolate the circuit?

thanks again.
e

 

[Foregus]

I installed an AVH-P3400BH Pioneer, but loved the reserve accesory power feature on the original radio, is there any way to keep it with the new head unit? or is there an adapter i need to install also? I installed it with rearview backup camera, also i would like to keep the dim feature

Thanks!

 

[Tech By Trade]

Great question, I would like to hook my sirius dock to this line if its external.

 

[Tech By Trade]

Too bad,
I managed to find a wiring chart over at the12volt.com for a 08 explorer. I'm guessing ours is the same. It appears the acc after power switch is controlled by the cad bus line, so it is an internal voltage controlled by a signal from the computer to the stereo. Dimmer is probably controlled by the same line as well. I guess a PAC module would be the only option to get this to work.

 

[Brainded]

PAC C2R-FRD1 is supposed to do the trick.

I just ordered a Pioneer AVH-P3400BH this weekend, with this harness adapter. It has yet to arrive, but I will post once I get it installed to let you know how it went.

On a related note, anyone know how hard it would be to add a RSE (rear seat entertainment) system to a 2007 ST? I would like to put monitors in the headrests, as I have a sunroof. The HU has the capability for it, plus a rear camera, so hopefully I can get those added eventually.

Edit: corrected head unit model number.

 

[Foregus]

Hi Brainded, hope everything goes well with the installation, please post back on how it when and if it was hard to install, I do not have the PAC adapter, I just installed it directly with a relay to be able to view videos and not have to have the parking break on, I did install a rearview camera and works great, I have a XLT 06, so I had to install it to the side a little bit, but looks good because I got one that is chromed

Hope to hear back to you

 

[Brainded]

The unit arrived last night, so tonight I will be soldering the two harnesses together (the PAC harness and the one that comes with the HU). I'll be performing the install either Friday night or Saturday, depending on how long I can get the kids to leave me alone. I'll post next week on how it went.

It looks like everything on the PAC harness connects to something on the HU wiring, so there should be no monkeying with vehicle wiring at all. I'm not the most skilled solderer, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

 

[Brainded]

OK, Everything is connected and installed, so here's what I found:

After spending a couple of hours Thursday evening soldering up all the connections for the assorted harnesses (PAC C2R-FRD1, PAC SWI-RC, and Head Unit harness) I was ready to go Friday afternoon. Just about everything had a home on the PAC harness. The only exceptions were the MUTE wire on the Pioneer harness, and the VSS wire on the PAC harness. The new HU has no VSS-type system that I am aware of, so I just capped that off. Also, the PAC harness has a connection for both Amp Turn-On and Power Antenna, while the Pioneer harness has only one "remote control" lead (which if you read the manual is for amp/antenna turn on). I only connected the Amp wire, and taped off the other.

Disassembled the console and trim, pulled out the old unit, plugged the three connections in, and it was up and running. The PAC harness has 2 RCA plugs for SUB OUT. I don't know if either or both are required, but I went ahead and connected both. Reconnected my battery, and proceeded to program the SWI-RC (if you get one of these, make sure you use PAC's configurator on their website to generate instructions specific to both vehicle and HU - it works great and is much more clear than what's included with the unit!). Programming went smoothly, and steering wheel controls work perfectly.

At this point the only thing left to do was to route the wire for the external microphone, which obviously has no connections on the harness. This took longer than everything else combined, as I ran it through the dash, up the A-pillar, and to the visor. Put everything back together, and started playing with it.

Operation is awesome. Sounds beautiful, easy to use. My only complaints are these:
1. The DIM feature does not appear to be doing anything. I *know* I connected the "illumination" wires properly and got a good solder on them. When the headlights turn on or off, the HU does not appear to change much.
2. The microphone is insanely oversensitive. There is a setting on the HU for send volume, but even turned all the way down you still sound really loud to the other party. I tried to mitigate this by angling the mic away, etc. Still needs more attention, but it also might be my phone. No idea where to change that in Android though.
3. Pandora works ONLY with an iPhone. The Pandora app on Android does not connect to it. I hope Pioneer updates this in the future.
4. Music on a USB key MUST be in a folder (not the root of the USB drive). Otherwise the HU gives a format error.

All-in-all, I am very happy with the way the PAC adapter worked, with the exception of the lighting dimmer issue. RAP works as it should, and everything sounds beautiful.

Incidentally, I bought this HU from Crutchfield, and they included the trim/install kit. Fits absolutely perfectly.

 

[Foregus]

Hey Brainded,

Thanks very much for your detailed description, great to hear it all went well, but if dimmer does not work that well, I would only be interested in the RAP as I do not have steering wheel controls, I will think about that. I do not have the problem with the overly sensitive microphone, or I haven't had any complaints when using it, only thing I have noticed is a bit reduction in radio reception, not sure why also 1 thing i did not like was that the iPod album art is all blurry, I have an Ipod nano 6th gen and the album art that appears on the screen is super fuzzy, have no idea why, did you experience any of these issues?

Thanks, and have a good one

 

[Brainded]

OK, upon further observation (it's hard to do this with automatic headlights) I have noticed that the actual LCD display does dim a little bit. The buttons and controls do not change brightness at all though.

I have the same iPod - 6G Nano - and I see the same thing. I suspect it's because the iPod has such a small screen itself, and an appropriately sized image is stored on the iPod. When it gets enlarged, it blurs. I'd love to try this with a different model to see if my theory holds. I'd also like them to add Android support to this so Bluetooth playback via Android (or even USB) would show the album art.

I have noticed the opposite with the radio reception. It's a lot better - to the point where there is a lot of interference from distant stations. Try turning up the local filtering and see if it helps.

Since you're not seeing the sensitive mic issue, it's probably my phone. I'll have to look into that. I have an HTC One X, and I've only had it about a month so I'm still getting used to it.

What rearview camera did you install? That's definitely on my list (especially since rear visibility is so poor to begin with and even more so with the ARE tonneau I have). Just looking for options. Do you have a link to it?

 

[Foregus]

So i did buy a cheap camera, but just because it is a chrome camera, it was 20 buces shipped from ebay, i got a chrome one so it matched the chrome detail on the back of the x (2006 XLT), so it looks pretty good on the back its a model E366 from ebay, this is the link

http://www.ebay.com/itm/E366-Type-C...r_View_Monitors_Cams_Kits&hash=item2ec044a984

I installed it on the drivers side and tilted it a little bit and at an angle so it would get the middle, it looks ok, it is not the best camera, but it does the job and it was easy to install, i did need extra cable to finish the job, (the original cable wasn't long enough) the others one i saw were ok, but were black, so I did not want a black camera. check them out, there are alot out there and get the one you like.