does anyone know anything about modifying a deck so that the faceplate can be installed somewhere other than where the deck is installed? ("remotely mounted")

i know it can be done, i just would like to know what it entails, and what equip i would need.

 

never heard of it.. but you raise an interesting question.. In theroy all you have to do is run a wire.. pin to pin from the back of the face to the deck.. but that would chang ethe resistance and could fry your deck/face if the wires are too long.. the trick would be finding something that would push in to the connector on one side and push on the pins on the other..
Why would you want your face somewhere other tan attached to the deck?

 

well.. i want to relocate my deck and hvac to make room in the radio pod for an lcd screen. thing is, there are only so many places you can put the deck where it would still be visable. that number of places would increase SIGNIFICANTLY if I could place the deck itself and the faceplate in two different places. The deck wouldn't have to be visable, just reachable -- to swap disks. So, it could go anywhere.. under my seat, in the center console, etc.

like i say, i know it's possible, and i've emailed people who i've found on google that have done it, but i've not had any response yet.

 

For the most part, i'd say simply take apart the faceplate and desolder the pins to the connector and then make an extension cable between it and the wires, but it would make more sense to just mount a flip down screen just under the center dash vents...

 

sounds like a neat plan...I saw a vet that had an xbox tray relocated into the dash and the rest of the xbox somewhere else...it was sweet...ill be interested in seeing this...here is an idea that wouldnt require as much work...just some sheetmetal or wood or plexyglass skills....

 

all fine and dandy if i had a CAMARO!

trans am dashes do not have a space there.

EDIT -> plus i don't want a flip down screen.

 

i've seen pics of it done before and mixed replies on ease/difficulty. one of the issues raised was that some headunits use certain voltages or pulses to let the deck know which button is pushed. if the cables are extended too much, this information may get degraded or not work (ie, you push play and instead it ejects the disk). i had thought about this a while ago, but decided to leave well enough alone

 

A friend of mine did something like this in his Corvette. He was a head installer at car audio shop and I was his extra hands when things got busy. He had 2 of the same radios and he took apart one of them. He used the front part of one to mount into his sun visor. He took the entire mounting plate that the face sits in and also the connector that the face connects to to get power. He then got some ribbon cable and started solder all of the connection points. It took an hour or so to do all of the soldering on both ends. After he got that done he was able to mount the actuall unit in a compartment behind the seats and then put the sunvisor back on. With using this method he still had the option of a detachable face. He also had a cd changer in his car so he didn't need to access the actual cd player to put cd's in. Everything worked as if the face was on the actuall cd player. Wish I had some pics but it has been a few years since he did this so it can be done. He had access to 2 cd players but normal people wouldn't want to spend the money on 2 cd players and destroy one of them. His boss let him do it to promote the shop at different shows we went to. Here is a pic of my car when we got it finished for a show.

This is inside of a dodge daytona. It needs a new engine then I will have it running again..

 

Wow, you crammed all that into a Daytona?

 

Its definetely doable. I HAVE heard the same thing someone else mentioned, that you have to watch the length of the extension you built, or screw with the resistance of the wires... I know theres was some issue with that discussed on Carsound.com over the Behringer 8024's....

But ive seen it done firsthand with a deck. The local shop i was selling for had a demo vehicle with the faceplate in the rear view mirror, however illegal that may be, hehehe.

 

thanks for all your help, guys.

i've been emailing back and forth to a guy that works at a Vancouver Car-Audio shop who did it to his vw. He used the ribbon-cable and solder technique too, except he extended only the faceplate , not the mounting plate as well. He relocated the plate to right above the rear-view, ran cables down to his center console where his deck was hidden behind an lcd screen.

i think i'll be doing it more-or-less the same way as him. I don't really want to go to the trouble of ALL that soldering, but it seems the only option i have for this project, and i do want to do this project.

IDEALLY there would be a ribbon cable that one could purchase that simply emulated the gold contacts, with 1 female end and 1 male end. That way, they could sell them in 6 foot sizes and you could couple 2 or 3 cables together, depending on the distance. If i had a spare deck, I could make such a cable, but i don't exactly have any lying around.

i'll post my progress when i start the project.