Head Unit Face Plate Hack

**Loftus** · 10-17-2002, 07:59 AM

- An idea to have Backlit profesional looking buttons - Okay has anyone taken an old stereo and ripped off the face plate that has all the buttons on it and mapped the circuit board or buttons to a keyboard hacked controller board? I'm planning on doing this in the next 2 weeks since i need at least 9 buttons to control my MP3 player. I've actually got a 94 VW stock stereo that was dead so i ripped off the face plate and plan to use this. It has 12 buttons in total so i can assign 1-6 as playlists, MIX will be shuffle, > will be seek.... you get the idea. Has anyone done this yet ? I know i might have to ditch the circuit board and build a new one but i can't see it being that big a deal.

**ShinkunoNamida** · 10-17-2002, 11:02 AM

I think you should be able to accomplish your goals with minimal aggravation.

I have a few ideas on backlighting buttons, but since i'm switching to touch screen it's become less important

**mp3hombre** · 10-17-2002, 02:02 PM

Go to this site, you might get an idea on using LEDs to light up stuff.

http://metku.net/index.html

**Loftus** · 11-22-2002, 01:23 PM

okay, after workin on this for a couple of weeks now i've finally finished my new install of a custom button setup. I used an old VW radio, took it apart and connected a keyboard controller circuit board to all the buttons. The face plate buttons are backlit green to mach my Palm and Kenwood deck ( dual illumination ). The Palm sit's in a cut down cradle that has 5 magnets at the back and the Palm has a metal strip adheared to the battery cover so the palm is easy to remove but stays solid when driving around. The button layout is as follows:
SCAN=Shutdown, MODE=Hold mode button in conjunction with #'s 1-6 for 6 more Playlist Dir's for a total of 12. , REP=Reboot winamp, MIX=toggles shuffle, NUMBERS 1-6=Playlist Dir's, >=Seek forward, <=Seek backward, STOP=Stop etc.....
The buttons activate keypresses that activate Macros that i made up with Macro Magic, Example: Turn on computer and music starts playing......Push #1 button then music stops, then plays a wav file "Alternative music ...Now loading", then loads the Alternative Dir, Then pauses 10sec's , then sorts alphabetically by path and filename. The same goes with all the playlist buttons, you get a computerized female voice introducing the genre your about to play.
I do a lot of driving at night so backlit buttons were a must feature on my list, and as for the Vocal intro for the playlists..it just help's me remember what button is assigned to what playlist.