Car AudioCar audio related questions and helpful hints for building the best sound system for your car or getting the most out of what you have.
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i got a switch from a 88 gta and i need to know what the gain contgrol switch pins are, or just what wire colors go to what pin on the back, there is 6 pins.
can you unscrew it and take a pic of what wires connect onto what pins on the back of it, and then i can help you hook it up to work with your pioneer deck
I am really unfamiliar with what screws to remove to get behind it. If you were closer I would let you do itto get the info you needed but as for me I have no clue when it comes to removing a dash.
You'll need a 7mm socket... look at your dash gauge panel just before the lip of the black dash pad. You'll see a bunch of 7mm screws; remove 'em.
Then go below the "ridge" that the sub control, hatch pop, and defog switches are on. Underneath, you'll see more 7mm screws; remove those too. Now the dash pulls away from the gauge plastic. It's a great chance to clean your gauge plastic as one big "rectangle", instead of individual circles.
There's really no way to mess anything up; just don't overtighten the screws when you put the dash panel back on!
__________________ -Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l)
not trying to outsmart anyone here, but the hex screws are actually 9/32" although the 7mm socket will undo most of them too....those two sizes are almost exactly the same size but the metric is slightly larger. Although GM does utilize quite a few 10mm hex screws mostly for the body paneling and misc interior trim.
As for the gain, I'm not sure it does any of that. I'm pretty sure that it is a regular ON-OFF switch. you can wire it to turn the remote signal on or off if you are using amps. If your car actually has the stock sub amp....it is crap anyways I wouldn't even bother with it. The amp is located somewhere under the dash near the passengers side. It's not too hard to get to, but you do have to dismantle some stuff.
'91, all you are working with is the blue remote wire from the deck. cut it and connect each end to terminals on the switch, test the swicth for continuity.....don't let the copper in those wires ground themselfs while the radio is on. If you aren't using and amp, then none of this applies....there is nothing that switch will do for a HU besides turning the dimmer lights on or off maybee....
DOOOOOO not hook up the Pioneer to the factory amp!!! leave that entirely out of the equation. infact, run new wires to the rear speakers if it is not too much trouble for you.
the plug should fit perfectly over the switch. it will be connected to the HU harness and also a small metal box with DELCO stickers on it, a little to the right behind the dash.....if it's not there....fooougetabout-it
__________________ -Justin- out of my mind and I'll never know why '86 Pontiac Firebird 305-4bbl / 700R4 T-Top WS6
'92 Pontiac Firebird 305-TBI / 700R4 T-Top
'76 Chevrolet Silverado C10 350-4bbl / TH350 longbed click for my Homepage at CarDomain to see my mods da computer: AMD A64 3400+ @ 2.6GHz in green Aspire SuperAlien case.click for a pic! Teddy!
Originally posted by Justins86bird A-red
B-ppl
C-wht
D-blk
E-gry
F-pnk
thank you, could you elaborate on that a bit and say teh position of the pin, or what the small one is and how they go from there, i have a bare switch and that is it, there is no a, b,c,d,e,f on it
i am adding just teh switch to my 91 to control my amp, it will have nothing to do with a factory uq7 setup, i will also post pics when done
Contact Tom at www.houseofcamaro.com He's got the connector and harness for the switch. With the connector you'd know which colors are for which prong, or you could even splice your wires into the connector's wires and simply plug it onto your switch--nice and clean.
The pic of mine didn't come out was well as I'd hoped, but here's what it looks like in the dash. But sorry, no, I'm not taking my dash apart to findout where the wires go, lol. Try Tom. He's a great guy, and he's got just about everything.
it is a kenwood amp, and no it does not have factory gain control, so i am adding it, all you have to do is to splice some rca's into it and poof there you go, i just need to know what pin does what
i can get eh wiring harness if i absolutley need to get it, but i was hoping that someone on here would know waht it is, but i guess i was wrong, so i will have to drive to the junkyard and see if the car is still there and just cut the harness out of it
Seriously, call Tom. His number's toll free, and it's on his website. www.houseofcamaro.com He's really a cool guy. If nothing else, maybe he'll at least tell you the sequence of the colors in the connector, and it'll save you a trip to the junkyard.
Or if you still don't have the info by tuesday, I'm going to see Tom to get a few things for my car. Let me know, and I'll look at, and maybe take a pic of, the connector for you.
i have to go to the boneyard to get part for my truck, but it has been raining for like a week straight, i dotn wnat to go till it stops, if it ever does stop then i will get to go,but it isnt looking good till the end of next week, so if i dont get to go i will let you know.
the switch is basically an ON-OFF switch. the multiple pins are of two separate switches, one is like a Single Throw double Pole, The other is just on-off if I remember right. However it's configured, it simply allows current to pass or not to pass between certain pins. There are only two modes, On or Off.
You can solder the wires directly onto the switch, or just use standard spade connectors. I thought you were just running the 12v remote wire through two of the pins on the switch. This would allow you turn your amp on or off at your command as long as the HU was on. If your talking about running your stereo signals from the RCAs through that switch, that's pretty much useless. If you use the switch to connect or disconnect the remote 12v lead, you only need two pins on the switch which open or close with the pushing of those buttons. Any two that do that will work, probably a pair right next to eachother. THe rest you can leave disconnected.
If you 'experiment' with the 12v remote lead, nothing much can go wrong, as long as you aren't shorting those wires to ground. The worst that will happen is your amp will turn on or off as you swicth leads and find out which ones work in conjunction with the switch position. Do not for any reason, run grounds and positive voltages through that switch, just the 12v + remote (low current) wire.
What you're doing sounds adventurous, but if you aren't sure of the pins or how to figure out, you shouldn't attempt to modify the funtion of your amplifier at all. I'm not trying to insult you, I just don't want you to destroy you equipment for no good reason. I'm an electronics tech myself and I would not mess around with the amp itself, the best you can do is hook it up and set it up properly. Using the switch as a remote on-off switch is all I would attempt to do with that. That is a perfectly reasonable 'trick' because it utilizes stock controls, yet electrically does the same thing that was intended.
If your're talking about desoldering the gain potentiometer and adding an RCA loop to relocate it somewhere else, please let me know how that works out. It would be easier to add something inline with the RCAs at the dash, but that's just MOP.
You could just put the amp under the seat with a long flathead screwdriver stuck in the gain dial.....sticking out far enough for you to just reach down and turn it from the driver's seat!
Although, the all time classic would be to mount a flange over the gain dial, utilize a long speedo cable....allowing you to turn a knob within your reach and thus turning the gain on the amp in the trunk space....That's high tech!
i dont know if i am explaining what i would like to do very well, what i wnat to do is possible and i know that people on this board have done it, there was a thread on it
Quote:
Originally posted by loomdog32 Ok here we go:
The basic idea is to first convert your 2 (or 1) RCA plugs coming from the back of your head unit to a single wire (and ground), put it through the switch/slider, and convert it back to RCA plugs.
There might be differences with what you want to do and what I did:
-I have a stereo pre-amp output on my head unit, but the slider only supports mono
-This is probably only good for low frequency signals, anything high-frequency will probably pick up some noise when it goes through the slider. Besides, since you can only do it in mono, it wouldn't be worth sacrificing stereo for.
-You can also hook up the sub on/off switch in line to the amp. You'll now have a control for whether or not you want the sub on AT ALL.
Ok, I'll start by going over every wire coming from the switch/slider, and then briefly talk about the RCAs, the rest'll be up to you.
Grey-ParkingLight(+) if you already have this switch in your car, just leave the grey alone, its the positive trigger for the light inside the switch. It'll come on as backlighting to the switch when the dash lights are on, just like the defroster and fog light buttons.
Black-Ground(-) also easy, but we'll also be hooking the ground from the RCAs into this later...
Pink-Amp-on trigger(+) This is commonly the blue lead from the aftermarket head unit, telling the amp in the trunk to turn on when the radio is on. By interupting it w/ the switch, you can turn your bass completely off, for whatever reason you might want. (This has come in handy for me for listening to Opie and Anthony no bass needed for talk).
White-Output to Amp to turn on (+) This is the output of the previous wire, and should continue on to the power-on connection on your amp.
Ok, break for the RCA part.....
All you have to do is connect the RCA's tip to the signal wire and the sleeve to ground. It'd probably be best to get a 4-pack of female RCA connectors from radio shack and attach them with small foot-long leads to the switch, that way you can disconnect the switch in the future easily.
Purple-BassIn (+) Take the tip of the RCA and connect it to this wire. this is the input to the slider. When the slider is all the way up the amp will get the full signal of whatever is coming from this wire. If you have 2 RCAs (left and right) coming from your head unit, you can combine the tips of both the left and right RCAs, as well as tieing all the grounds to black.
Red-BassOut (+) The same as purple, but now the signal is coming out of the switch and going to whatever RCA cable that leads to the signal input of your amp. If you need to run stereo inputs to your amp (even though your signal is now mono anyway), you can split this wire to both the tip of the left and tip of the right with no problem.
Ok that covers every wire and their function. If you have basic car-audio knowledge you probably won't need to read more than the first sentence for each wire before you get the idea
Questions, comments, and opinions welcome I hope this helps at least someone
This was origionally posted by Jim 86 Bird in the Body and Interior forum.. just thought i would bring it over to this forum..
this was what i am planning on doing, and mounting it in the top of the ashtray lid since i have a 91 and there is no psot for it on the dash, since i am customizing the top plate anyways i figured why not do it when i am putting in my b&m mega shifter
since my amp has high level inputs all that i dont even have ot convert back to rca's once i leave the switch all i have to do is run the high level wires back to the amp and do it that way. it will be much easier than converting back to rca's, which is not the problem, and be much cleaner than running rca's.
if it does not work then no big deal, i will just take everything out and run it how it is supposed to be run, but if it does wrok then i have something that i can be proud of. if it sounds bad from going thought hte switch then i can take it out, but it not even better.
here is my lay out for what i have in my car
pioneer premier 840 deck with front, rear, and sub outputs going to alpine eq, to the amp, which will go to the speakers obvously. if i can get the switch hooked up then that is awsome and i can do away with the eq, and have my deck installed with a real build up kit and not a hacked up, sloppy one making the eq look like crap when it is installed. it will also be alot cleaner and simple looking and not so congested.
__________________
Last edited by white91formula; 04-04-2004 at 11:43 AM.
Sounds good, but nevermind the wire colors...know the function of the wires.
No wonder there could be noise...is talking about using a headlamp dimmer or something...!? ..odd
even connecting your L & R signals together doesn't seem like a good idea without something to isolate the two. Why not just get a high quality Dual potentiometer and mount it right under your ash tray lid if that's where you want to put it. The ugly silver spline shaft and lock nut will be visible, but you can add a knob if it comes with the dial (potentiometer). Cosmetically it will look fine with a plastic knob over it. Don't use a 4x RCA radio shack board. instead, get an RCA female ended wire, on both ends or buy the tips with a length of cable...whatever is easiest. Solder the wires directly on to the terminals of the pot. grounds are common, L & R separate ofcourse, but the input connects to one end of the resistor, the output connects to the wiper arm terminal . Now you have a mounted stereo gain dial and two pairs of female RCA cables dangling underneath ready to connect to your RCAs... also ground the casing of the pot, if it is not already a part of the grounding terminal. Please review a schematic, so you can see what I am talking about.
don't use the high level inputs for anything, they are not clean, trust me.
I wouldn't even add connections, I would splice it into the cable that's already there. if you did it right, there would be no need for removing it. You might want to have the RCAs there, just incase you don't like it.
Originally posted by white91formula Originally posted by loomdog32
Ok here we go:
The basic idea is to first convert your 2 (or 1) RCA plugs coming from the back of your head unit to a single wire (and ground), put it through the switch/slider, and convert it back to RCA plugs.
this was what i am planning on doing,
Hope you don’t like stereo.
I’ve posted about this method before. If you do it this way you will loose 20-90% of your stereo separation (depending on manufacture/model of the HU) for the speaker outputs on your HU. Most (almost ALL) HUs do not use any isolation for the per-amp outputs, just a 470 ohm resistor and a muting transistor. That means if you tie the per-amp outputs right to left, some of the signal from the left WILL be feed into the right input of the internal amp, and some of the right WILL be feed into the left input of the internal amp. You will NOT have the same stereo separation; the amount of separation you lose will depend in the make/model of the HU. The right way to do this would be to make a dual op-amp circuit and use the “gain control” to control the gain of the op-amps. That way you will maintain your right/left separation, not to mention that doing it this way you can make you’re 1V per-outs 5V or more pre-outs.
What is the model of your HU? I may be able to look it up and tell you how much separation you’ll lose, and the best way around it.
__________________ Now I HAVE_A_Z
89 IROC 350 TPI
98 S10 ZR2
86 H-D Sportster
"My favorite color is the radio..."
"The voices agree with me!"
Friends don't let friends install car stereos.
Originally posted by Kj Rockz Guess so, thats messed up. I guess we did not get the sounds, just the better looking car.
thats funny
anyways to keep the thread on topic, i wll be going to the boneyard this weekend i guess to get that harness and hopefully getit hook up to, then iwill let everyone know how it sounds.
I have to take back all the negative thoughts in my first post, you luck-out with that HU. In that model Pioneer used a separate line driver for the 4V pre-amp outputs. This IC will give you the isolation you would need to do this and not lose your stereo separation. Just use only the sub-outs (like you would use any other output). You even get and 82 ohm resistor on the output so any difference in signal right to left shouldn’t be a problem, but it wouldn’t hurt to use some a 100 ohm resistors on the output (one each on the center pin of RCA). Your EVTC IC may thank you later by not dying, but I think you’ll be OK with out them.
But on 95% of the HU on the market now you WILL have the problem I described before.
Originally posted by NEEDAZ Just use only the sub-outs (like you would use any other output).
this is going to my rear speakers.... not a sub
well it is going to the rear speaker for now, but if i can find the right deal on the sub i want then i might ad one, but for now i am not putting a sub into my car. I have grown out of that phase
Cool. I'm glad you got it. I was at House of Camaro today, and Tom didn't have them afterall. I must've misunderstood him. He's HAD them, but he doesn't have any now.
Apparently others have done what you're trying to do now--use the factory switch to control their aftermarket amps.
In the pic above of my dash, see that lower dash section that holds the switches? Looking at the pic of your interior(on your website), I see something similar next to your steering column. It looks empty. Is it? Could you cut that piece and and mount the swithes in it? It would look stock, it would be a convenient space, within reach, and it would be safer than possibly messing up the console shifter plate, I think.
that piece that goes over the radio where there is only 1 swtich in the pics now has 3, i added fogs, and defroster hatch so i got the factory buttons, and the part that is right under/next to the colum has a thick metal plate behind it, so it would be really hard to cut into
i was thinking of drilling a few small holes into the inside of hte console, and just zip tieing the swtiches ot the inside of that, but i want to find a better way to do it.
No, No, leave the Optimus out of there. I don't wish you bad results, but what your doing with the RCA cables and everything, is not the makings of a good sounding stereo system in my opinion. You may do it and have no noticable problems, but that's just luck.
To give you a rough idea, you are comprimising the shielding in the RCA cables and putting the signal through an old crusty switch for really no good reason at all. The 12 remote lead will turn the amp on and off and it won't affect the sound quality as long as it keeps the amp on.
Originally posted by junkyarddog not trying to outsmart anyone here, but the hex screws are actually 9/32" although the 7mm socket will undo most of them too....those two sizes are almost exactly the same size but the metric is slightly larger.
LOL! Okay, the neighbors have you to blame. I ran outside in my boxers, took out a screw, came inside, and measured it with my dial calipers. On two sides, I got 7.00 mm, on the third side, I got 6.88mm.
Not that I'm anal or anything but you made me curious!
I think this qualifies as "time for me to go to bed"
__________________ -Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l)
Teddy! 
thats funny
