Ok, so who was asleep at Xenarc when they decided to use this "Monstrous" connector that sticks 2 inches out the back of the monitor? Ever heard of a pigtail, Xenarc? </end_rant>
I have a 2008 Trailblazer SS, which has a huge, unavoidable steel support exactly 7.5 inches back, and I saw people were dremeling out their cases and sliding the board forward to fit them in their dash, I did not care for that solution for it also did not fix my other problem, the 400' of cable Xenarc puts on the harness. (once again, what are you thinking? the next rev needs PIGTAILS!!!!!)
Time to cut the cable and start soldering (Please note, it broke my heart to do this, I literally got this new in the mail the previous day, from MP3car.com of course, and I had only turned it on for testing)
PLEASE NOTE: If your soldering skills are below a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being ultra talented) DO NOT DO THIS, get a geek buddy to help you, then when your monitor doesn't work after the mods, you have someone to blame/kill.
First, (OPTIONAL) get a female VGA connector (my old dash monitor used a female) I cut a pigtail off a DELL PC adaptor I had, then disassembled the Xenarc, pulled the board, connected it to the harness, and pinned everything out to the board (USB, Vid1, Vid2, VGA) and wrote up a full diagram (horrible drawing included) I suggest you pin out your own config, incase something changes with the Xenarc design in the future.
Now that I have a diagram I feel I can trust, I take my time and desolder the old 20 pin connector, even with the right tools, it still came off in chunks. clean up the connections with some flux and desolder wick so it looks factory again.
Thread the VGA, USB, and Vid1/Vid2 pigtails through the connector hole in the chassis before you solder or you will be very, very angry with yourself!
Do the VGA First, group all grounds together, solder them into a tinned lead, stick it in one of the old mounting holes and solder it solid, now, one by one, tin and insert/solder each of the r,g,b and sync wires. Now, group all the USB, Vid1, and Vid2 shields and do the same (tin together and solder solid to the other mounting hole) and carefully tin each lead, stick in it's new home and solder away. (I skipped the audio wire completely)
Now. reassemble the chassis and test/pray. (Mine works perfectly and fits like a dream now) I'm sure you realize, YMMV.
Note: I added a tie wrap as a strain release after this picture.
The Timmy!
