radios

[jonathanwhite]

Does anyone have trouble with their radio and cd changers coming on by themselves in their ford explorers. I have the same radio and cd in my 1999 ford ranger and my 2000 explorer. The thing come on by itself and goes through the cd without my touching it. I have to manually cut off the radio and then a little later it will come on again. Does anyone else have this problem?

 

[Pete Deering]

Does anyone have trouble with their radio and cd changers coming on by themselves in their ford explorers. I have the same radio and cd in my 1999 ford ranger and my 2000 explorer. The thing come on by itself and goes through the cd without my touching it. I have to manually cut off the radio and then a little later it will come on again. Does anyone else have this problem?

I have a volume control switch that does not stay in the off position.

 

[J_C]

No, I don't have a CD changer. What would happen if you unplugged it? I mean do you ever use it? Even if I had one (do have single slot CD radio), I'd have long ago abandoned its use in favor of a digital media player of some sort. I'm okay listening to local radio stations but on longer trips, also have a cigarette lighter powered player that takes mSD cards or bluetooth links to my phone as the source. Mine is pretty basic but there's a lot of inexpensive choices hese days on Amazon if you don't want to replace the whole head unit.

 

[Pete Deering]

No, I don't have a CD changer. What would happen if you unplugged it? I mean do you ever use it? Even if I had one (do have single slot CD radio), I'd have long ago abandoned its use in favor of a digital media player of some sort. I'm okay listening to local radio stations but on longer trips, also have a cigarette lighter powered player that takes mSD cards or bluetooth links to my phone as the source. Mine is pretty basic but there's a lot of inexpensive choices hese days on Amazon if you don't want to replace the whole head unit.

My Factory radio is it cassette, my CD player is a 6 disc player. Good for a 2.5 hour drive.

The factory radio did not offer mp3 connection. Is your radio factory?

 

[J_C]

^ Yes factory radio. My player transmits FM. Since I live near Cincinnati where there are so many radio stations, it took a couple minutes searching to find the best open frequency to transmit.

Amazon no longer sells it, instead much fancier options for about the same ~$16. Random review I found on ebay...


The treble is a little compressed but otherwise, sounds good.

 

[429CJ-3X2]

The factory radio with no cd changer in my son's '97 Mountaineer won't shut off, and I even swapped radios once. He uses some sort of FM transmitter to listen to what he wants.

 

[J_C]

My Factory radio is it cassette, my CD player is a 6 disc player. Good for a 2.5 hour drive.

The factory radio did not offer mp3 connection. Is your radio factory?

Note that there is also mod potential on the units with the external CD changer, to connect an analog source, whether a phone headphone jack or something else.

I'd expect that it sends a line level signal to the head unit, but this could first be measured for about 1V AC playing a continuous tone. If it's nowhere near that, then this mod might need an opamp in series to preamp, or to attenuate (or a resistor divider instead) to the right signal level.

Anyway, the CD changer has what you'd expect, analog input to the head unit. "CD Right Sig In" as right channel positive, "CD Right Sig Out" as right ground, and the same for the left channel. These inputs could be wired to a stereo jack, RCA plugs, even a bluetooth stereo receiver module (about ?? $4 on ebay) that you produce a 5V power supply for (simple LM7805 regulator would do fine).

My situation is a little different. I have the high series radio, with the amp in the back, but no sub or CD changer, so I don't have the separate input channels for the CD changer (AFAIK), but could just use a DPDT toggle switch, to switch from radio, to a hardwired analog source feeding the amp directly, and depending on the gain of the amp, might need a boost circuit and pot for volume, basically a slightly modified headphone headamp circuit would work... again about a $4 cost to get something basic on ebay if not DIY. I suppose if I wanted to get intrustive to the head unit, I could measure the signal coming from the CD player, cut the power line to it, tap into its signal output and use that as an input once it is determined how the signal strength needs adjusted.