Thread: Relocating headunit and extending faceplate somewhere else.

LOL - I gave that up a while ago. Had the same problem, no LCD screen. I even had a local radio shop that claimed to be able to do it before give it a try, with no luck (on my Alpine CDA-9855). I think these new screens need too much juice and the long connection can't do it.

I bought an XM radio (XM Direct) instead, and am so glad I did. SOOOOO much better.

Bad news. None of the newer CD receivers are capable of having the faceplate relocated. They have gone to a design where its really tough to solder the wires in place.

I am going to try to do this with my HU. What's so particular about mine, is that the volume, bass, and treble knobs are physical pots. So my plan is to wire all the pins on the board, and then also wire the pots end to end. Not sure if this will work though, but I have 2 units, so if I screw one, who cares.

The HUs with the motorized faceplates use a tiny ribbon cable from the HU to a socket that sits on the movable backing plate, which the faceplate attaches to. There is virtually nothing you can solder to on these. The sockets are soldered to one side of the board. There are no solder pads on the back side of the board. If you try to solder to the front side of the board, the thickness of your wires will hold the circuit board away from the case.

THe only way you could solder your wires is by soldering to the pins on the face-off connector. If you do that, you wreck it and you can't go back to stock. So if you go through the work of soldering it all up and you find the LCD doesn't work, you've wrecked your HU.

I've bought and taken apart brand new Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic and Kenwood CD receivers in the last 3 days. None of these new receivers are very promising for remoting the faceplates. They have moved to a construction method which pretty much precludes soldering wire leads onto the connections. The new faceplates use microcontrollers that put out such little power that the distance of the cables will likely result in a non-functioning LCD.

I considered making a mold of the male/female sides of the IC thinking that this way a guy could make an extension cable without soldering anything to the HU or faceplate. But I couldn't figure out how to embed the metal pins into the molded pieces.

I also tried to locate the male/femal sides of the IC at electronics suppliers but didn't have any luck. It would help if I knew the technical names for these pieces.

Bottom line....you need to buy a reciever that is at least a year old because the new stuff is really tough to work on.

Ebay Ebay Ebay for those older receivers! lol

Anyony tried beefier cable? Cat 7 maybe?

Yep, I am buying off of ebay. I'll be using a 10 foot DB25 computer cable.

anyone sucessfully do this with a stock GM Delco head unit?

DaveB: Did you try a HU with DETACHABLE faceplate, instead of the motorized/tilting ones? Those are more likely to have standard pins etc, without flimsy ribbons....

I think Alpine's are being used a lot for remote face plating...

*cough* post 33 *cough*