HUs with detachable face for remote mounting

**RedGTiVR6** · 06-23-2006, 06:22 PM

For those of you who have successfully been able to remote mount your detachable face head units, can you list them here in this thread and also mention any issues or concerns that you ran into?

I think this would be a good resource to those looking to do the same thing.

**DaveB** · 06-24-2006, 01:21 AM

Pioneer DEH-P6400

**wuzzaap123** · 06-24-2006, 08:29 PM

Today I bought a brand new Alpine CDA-9856.
I tried the remote mounting it worked great. Everything functioned correctly. I used 3 ft cat6 cable soldered at each end and then used a connector to connect them together. Took about 2 hours. I was talking to one of the guys at the stereo shop and they told me that this should work on ALL alpines. I think the people who had trouble doing it weren't connecting it correctly. I will be doing another one soon on a new pioneer so i'll post my results when im done.

**DaveB** · 06-24-2006, 10:49 PM

Congratulations on your project! I'm glad it worked for you!

I'd say it worked for you because of the 3 foot cable. I doubt that would be long enough for most people if they want to mount the faceplate on their sunvisor. My cable was closer to 10 feet. Its the low power and the cable distance that make it so that it doesn't work with most head units.

**wuzzaap123** · 06-25-2006, 02:11 PM

im not so sure i buy the long cable theory. cable resistance should only matter if the faceplate was drawing high current. The dude at the stereo shop said he did it in a lot of boats and the cables were over 20 feet long. But who knows. I think the most important thing is how well your soldering job is and how well you can secure the cable so it doesnt come off. i'll post some pics when im done with my whole project.

**RedGTiVR6** · 06-25-2006, 07:52 PM

cat 5 over long distances and other wire over long distances are different stories.

**2k1Toaster** · 06-25-2006, 08:21 PM

Even if it was a power thing, couldn't you just wire up some simple transistors to a power supply, and then use that to boost it? They should be ample fast for data streams as well? Could a simple solution work?

**RedGTiVR6** · 06-26-2006, 07:45 AM

there really shouldn't be any current on a face plate. Everything on a face plate is very low current, leds and switch points, etc.

The biggest issue is the solder joint, since Cat 5 is solid, making the connection will be difficult.

But, it can be done!

**wuzzaap123** · 06-26-2006, 03:45 PM

yeah, i did my soldering on an expensive metcal soldering workstation from my work. I used the thinnest tip to do it. Tint the gold connectors first, tint the ends of the wires, and then just touch them and solder, very easy. But if you using one of those big tipped radio shack soldering irons, then the job is definitely more challenging.